The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.
Rene Descartes
If you love reading, you don't need someone to tell you how beneficial curling up with a book is. But in a world of ever-present screens, we easily forget simple pleasures and benefits of it.
For every problem you face, someone else has already solved it. Or he can help you solve it. Most successful people out there, from Mark Zuckerberg to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are passionate readers. Why would people with such wealth spend time leafing through pages?
In terms of fiction and non-fiction there are thousands of stories out there that could broaden your knowledge on certain topic and your understanding of the world. Reading keeps your mind sharp, improves your memory, imagination, analytical, communication and writing skills or simply brings you peace and tranquility as you read something lightweight. It let's you escape in someone else's world, exposes you to new things and it can even be therapeutic. It makes you stop thinking about day-to-day life so you can find new perspective. A new way to look at things.
Here I'll share some tips from my experience that enabled me to read 30 books in the last four months. If your reading list is growing and you're buying books you don't read, maybe it's time to change it this year.
1. Read books that you actually like
This is essential if you want to stay motivated with your goal of reading a book per week. Not all books are for everyone. You've probably read some book that was supposed to be amazing, but it didn't resonate with you. It might be a best seller, but you don't like the writing style or you are at the different stage of your life.
Find topics and subjects you're passionate about.
At the time I finished high school and headed off to college, my reading habits were really poor. Recommended school literature we were forced to read was not appealing and I didn't have motivation or desire to search for alternative titles and topics that might interest me more.
I remember vividly how everything changed when I bought this used old book from a street seller. It was Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Short as it is, I devoured it an hour and a half fascinated by adventures of main character and his journey of self-discovery. From then on, book shelves in my home are constantly updated with new titles.
Make a list of books you think you're really going to enjoy, that will teach you everything you want to learn. You will always be looking forward to the next one.
Always have book prepared in advance. Be assured that money you spend in bookstores and on Amazon buying books is worth it.
Start small if you haven't read much recently. Grab shorter books first, don't go for 1200 pages 3-part epic fantasy novels immediately.
2. Find a way to read around your schedule
If you want to read more, then you'll have to work around your life situation and use every opportunity you have. Excuses like I'm too busy or I'm to tired should become thing of the past. You read because you love it and no matter how busy your schedule may seem, you can always squeeze an hour a day for reading.
That means you can read
- while taking a commute
- while eating
- while waiting in post office
- while taking a bath
- while making lunch
If this seems like a lot, then start small - set your alarm 15 minutes earlier and use that time to read. Find same amount of time in the evening, just before bed, to read something lightweight, fiction, fantasy, romantic love stories... whatever works for you. Read books while you're on the train, on the way to work or school. That way you'll add up to one hour of daily reading which sounds pretty amazing, right? Let's say you read 40 pages per hour, that means you'll finish an average book of 250 pages in about six days. Every day we have at least an hour of mundane stuff we can use to develop ourselves.
3. Listen to audiobooks
Before I engaged in audiobook listening, I was skeptical. How can a stranger's voice in my head substitute the experience of seeing it with my own eyes? But my discovery of how wonderful audiobooks are was quick and I soon found myself addicted to them.
Listening to audiobook engages different senses, but our cognitive experience is pretty much the same. It's like you are having a conversation with one of the greatest minds that ever existed. Pay no attention if someone tells you "that's not the right way to do it".
One of the great benefits of audiobooks is that you can adjust speed on your player however you prefer. And what I found out is that you can almost double the speed without jeopardizing comprehension. It might seem a bit odd in the beginning, but your brain will adjust quickly without feeling that it's too fast. This can also serve as a practice to absorb information faster and develop better analytic reflexes. A book that is let's say 9 hours long will take only 5 hours of listening if you put it at 1.8x speed.
Bare in mind that listening to books at this tempo is not recommended for all genres. It's okay if the topic is business, marketing, self-development or something similar. You don't want, however, to double the speed as you're listening about Frodo's journey across Misty Mountains and towards the gates of Mordor. No point in speeding up something that serves for entertainment or pleasure.
Audiobooks are effective, convenient and they can save you great amount of time. The only thing they lack of is a good way to highlight or reread important passages and messages. That's why I suggest you summarize key takeaways after each of your listening sessions.
I use Smart audiobook player on my Android, but there are a lot of other options out there.
4. Take time to reflect and write down notes
Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.
Otto von Bismarck
After you finish reading a book, sit down and write a short summary of everything you remember and find worth mentioning. What are main messages author wanted to convey? What are your key takeaways?
Without necessary reflection, book bounces of the brain, instead of taking up roots inside and then affecting the way you see and think about the world. Highlights and general feeling of a book won't remain in your memory unless you summarize what impacted you the most.
I use Evernote for note taking which makes it available anytime, anywhere.
Most books are based on author's opinions, so don't treat what you read as a definite law that exist in the world. Instead, look at it from your own perspective and compare it with knowledge and experiences you already possess. Your understanding and awareness will grow from there.
When you start reading a lot, you realize there's so many great books out there, so many amazing human stories packed inside couple of hundred pages. You can't find that anywhere else.
It's the beauty of human brain, the most complex thing in the known universe. Like fossils, we leave behind some of the machinations of our mind, some of our thoughts. Something that everyone else can explore and benefit from.
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