If you ’ re doing all that without the correct information, though, you can well go 100 miles in the wrong steering .
Knowledge is possibly the most valuable column of improvement. As Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Stricker says : “The accrual and application of knowledge is a force multiplier that can spark everything from technology to science to philosophy, and new ways of life with them.”
few forms of media can give you knowledge as thoroughly, as promptly, and a cheaply as the base book. Radio, television receiver, and the internet were all supposed to kill physical books.
They didn ’ triiodothyronine .
Books are special because you get entire decades of lessons from the generator wrapped in a 300-page package. This is opposed to your average YouTuber who is trying to stretch one musical composition of information into a video that feels decades long .
silent, it ’ mho worth remembering that if you don ’ t have fourth dimension to digest the information you read in books, you may as good be staring at a blank foliate. This is the cause that one acquaintance of yours listens to 87 business podcasts every day… but never starts a business. Remember the Strickler quote. It ’ s the accrual and application of cognition that matters, not simple consumption of it .
here are a few tips for turning that smokestack of unread pages on your bookshelf into actual value in your day to day life .
Don ’ metric ton wait for person else to do it. Hire yourself and start calling the shots .
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1.Read Less Per Day, More much
brilliant as the homo brain is, it suffers from a cruddy quirk that can doom even our best efforts to increase our cognition base : about everything we learn is forgotten in just two days .
This species-wide forgetfulness has been documented over the years, largely thanks to psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus. Ebbinghaus created the “ Forgetting Curve ” in order to show how information leaks out of your brain over time .
It ’ s a bare picture, international relations and security network ’ metric ton it ? ironically, this crook is a principle that has never left my mind. It is incredibly freeing to learn humans simply weren’t meant to retain everything .
You may think you have a big memory. The accuracy is, it ’ randomness probably much worse than you think .
photographic memory is a myth, and humans who claim to have renowned memories go through drills and practice each day to retain what they learn. You ’ vitamin d be better off perfecting that avocado toast recipe if you don ’ t have hours for assigning memory tricks to the 100 pages you speed-skimmed over coffee .
The solution ? Read less, more frequently .
What Ebbinghaus found in his efforts to improve the human mind was that pieces of smaller information, reinforced daily, were more likely to stick. He called this overlearning. As you can see in this moment chart, more information is retained with each revisit of the information .
What does that mean ? That means if you merely have 1 hour to read, consider dialing back your understand to lone 15 minutes of that time. Use the remaining 45 minutes to recall and dwell on what you ’ ve read .
When you start reading the future day, more of what you read previously will be fresh in your memory, making it easier to pick up where you left off. The modern incision will stick even better because of this .
It ’ s a virtuous cycle .
2.Annotate All Your Books for Active Reading and Easy Reference
What if every bible you read looked like a literal highlight reel of what you learned ?
Remember the winder phrase : accretion of cognition, not consumption. Books were meant to be living documents, to be interacted with, and not passively consumed. One way you can make that throw is by constantly reading with a pen and a highlighter. My poor books never knew what hit them .
not lone has the yellow highlighter been rise to boost memory and memory, simply holding one keep you engaged as you turn the pages. You read differently when actively searching for useful information .
We ’ ve already dialed back your reading fourth dimension to 15 minutes per day. The highlighter and pen marks further maximize that fourth dimension by showing you what is most important to you. Since you might not always be in a position to act on the information you ’ ve read correct away, your annotations can act as a disturbance tilt for your future .
A personal example. respective years ago I read Automatic Wealth by Michael Masterson. The information within was eye-opening, but there were besides many principles to implement mighty away. Thanks to my meticulous annotation routine, I flipped open the record months late, found an note I ’ vitamin d made about improving my dawn routine, and immediately put it into play.
If you ’ re a freak like me, you can take it a measure farther. In addition to the write and highlighter, my reading armory is besides equipped with these : post-it flags .
When I have these babies in pass and become obsessed with a sealed book, things can get carried away pretty quickly…
The highlighter and pen will go a long room, but if you ’ re looking for bonus points, use the post-it ease up system for statistics, quotes, and far reading recommendations. Your future self will thank you .
3.Write About What You Read
The key to this tip is writing to teach .
teaching has been shown to have massive benefits on retained cognition .
Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki are fiscal experts in partially because of their education, but besides because they talk about money with people all day, every day. Dave Chesson is an expert on Amazon ’ s algorithm because he spent years blogging about it. Marie Kondo is universe renowned as the tidying queen because… you guessed it… she teaches, writes, and speaks about it constantly .
Benefits of writing down what you learned comes in two separate parts :
The foremost profit comes from preparing to write. Remember that deplorable drill in educate where you had to share a “ fun fact ” about yourself ? What happened when you knew your turn was coming ? Your brain started scanning the records of your biography, recalling tidbits of information .
Preparing to write any number of words on any topic demands you call to mind all those little details you know about the subject. This alone bumps up Ebbinghaus ’ s recall recommendation and puts you at the top of the forgetting curves once more. As you organize the ideas in your mind, you remember .
The moment benefit happens in the act of writing. Let ’ s pretend you are writing about a newfangled market strategy you learned. It ’ s a method acting of producing casual video recording. While jotting down everything you learned, you think, “ Wait a infinitesimal, what was that app I was supposed to use for filming ? ” So you take a quick glance at the foreground line in your book .
Boom. Memory jogged. Lesson locked .
As you ’ rhenium writing, consider how the data you merely learned relates to what you already know. If you ’ re in food, write down how the emergence of meal delivery services may affect your brick and mortar pizza place. If you ’ re in the embark business, what did you learn about FedEx ’ s logo history that differentiates it from UPS ?
Writing about what you learn doesn ’ t mean you have to become a full time blogger ( although it is a great way to create a well of infinite message ). You don ’ t need to spend hours crafting perfect prose. Your english teacher won ’ metric ton learn this. rather, writing a flying stream of consciousness note on your phone or in Evernote for 10 minutes will do the trick .
What About Audio Books ?
It ’ s a fairly interview. tied though print books are still reportedly much more popular than digital books, audio books are on the ascent .
possibly you have an hour-long commute, and you ’ re trying to make the most of that clock. Ebbinghaus ’ randomness rules and everything you ’ ve learned here still applies. Remember, the key here is not reading a certain format of a book, but storing what you learn in memory. ( Accrual of cognition, not consumption. )
As you ’ re force, pause the sound recording book every 15 minutes or so, and teach your steering wheel what you merely learned. Although it ’ s a placid student, it is a adept hearer ?
decision
There you have it – three ways to remember and use more of what you read. The key takeout for this post is to remember your goal is the accrual of knowledge, not mere consumption. More read is not inevitably better .
here are the three tips once more :
- Read less, more frequently
- Annotate your books to read actively
- Write about what you ’ re learning
Read more: The Best Philosophy Books Of All Time
tied if you choose one of those three tips, you ’ ll have a a lot better find of turning basic reading into business results .
Stay focused. Stay balanced. Learn, and most importantly :
Read .
