Quick snippets from my morning read on Friday, 30th October 2020
Today’s morning read was prompted by a question asked in our Telegram group this week. The question was about retaining knowledge, information and acting on it.
I found this article by James Clear “7 Ways to Retain More of Every Book You Read” to have some pretty useful insights and tips, so I’ll share a few of my favorites.
7 Ways to Retain More of Every Book You Read
1. Quit More Books
It doesn’t take long to figure out if something is worth reading. Skilled writing and high-quality ideas stick out. Life is too short to waste it on average books. The opportunity cost is too high. There are so many amazing things to read.
Here’s my recommendation: Start more books. Quit most of them. Read the great ones twice.
2. Create Searchable Notes
Keep notes on what you read. You can do this however you like. It doesn’t need to be a big production or a complicated system. Just do something to emphasize the important points and passages.
But here’s the real key: store your notes in a searchable format.
3. Write a Short Summary
As soon as I finish a book, I challenge myself to summarize the entire text in just three sentences. This constraint is just a game, of course, but it forces me to consider what was really important about the book.
If you feel like you can’t squeeze the whole book into three sentences, consider using the Feynman Technique.
The Feynman Technique is a note-taking strategy named after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. It’s pretty simple: Write the name of the book at the top of a blank sheet of paper, then write down how you’d explain the book to someone who had never heard of it.
4. Read It Twice
The philosopher Karl Popper explained the benefits nicely, “Anything worth reading is not only worth reading twice, but worth reading again and again. If a book is worthwhile, then you will always be able to make new discoveries in it and find things in it that you didn’t notice before, even though you have read it many times.”
You can real the full (and really insightful) article on James Clear’s blog through the link below.
And as always, if you enjoyed this, check out the rest of my daily snippets, curated daily, right here on The Red Notebook.
