How To Read a Book
You’re probably thinking… “Really? A blog post on how to read a book? This guy must be hurting for content!”
I mentioned in a recent blog post about my time away from work that I have rekindled a love for reading this summer. As I’ve become a parent in the past few years I haven’t made a ton of space for my own reading and instead have been focusing on the works of Dr Seuss and Julia Donaldson. Don’t get me wrong - I love reading to my kids! However, I’ve started reading more for my own learning and I’m thrilled that it’s now part of my life again.
I’m a morning person and find that I’m most effective and alert between 7am - 3pm. I do most of my reading in the evenings, which presents a challenge for me: if I’m reading to learn, how do I absorb information that I’m reading so that I can carry it forward in my life? I decided to setup a system that allowed me to do this relatively easily. Here’s what worked well for me:
Goodreads - As in most aspects of my life, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I track progress on the things I do. Enter the Goodreads app, which not only allows me to track which books I’m interested in reading but also the progress on what books I’m currently reading. This keeps me honest about moving forward my reading habits and helps scratch my achievement itch.
Mark it Up! - I’ve read a few articles that say it’s OK to mark up books you own, while others say it can be disrespectful to the author. After spending years wanting to keep books in a pristine shape, I decided going forward it’s OK for me to highlight and take notes. I purchased a double-ended highlighter which allows me to highlight which sections of a page I want to come back to and to take notes in margins.
Flagging Pages - For pages that I have marked-up, I fold the top corner of the page for easy review once I’m done with the book. It’s also an interesting way to get a quick visual of how much valuable information I noted for each book I read.
Final Review - Once I’m done with a book, I spend about 30-60 minutes re-reviewing the pages that I flagged and the notes that I took, and re-write my takeaways in a Google Doc. I try to keep these documents brief, between 1-2 pages of bulleted notes max, so that I can quickly reference highlights of each book going forward.
It’s important to note that I apply these techniques mostly to non-fiction books that I read as a learning opportunity. I do not dabble much in fiction books these days but perhaps that will change as I make progress on my (never ending!) Goodreads reading list.
Hopefully these tips help you get the most out of your reading experience!