Use These Simple Strategies to Retain Everything You Read
QUIT BOOKS
Good writing is effortless reading. Bad writing, on the other hand, feels like a chore.
When it comes to reading, you don’t need to finish what you start. You can quit. Once you realize that you can quit without guilt, everything changes.
Reading a great book twice is better than reading ten average ones.
LEVELS OF READING
Tailoring how you read to what you read saves you time and increases retention.
- Reading to Entertain — The level of reading taught in our elementary schools.
- Reading to Inform — A superficial read. You skim, dive in and out, get a feel for the book, and get the gist of things.
- Reading to Understand — The real workhorse of reading. This is a thorough reading where you chew on things and digest them.
- Reading to Master — If you just read one book on a topic, odds are you have a lot of blind spots in your knowledge. Synoptical reading is reading various books and articles on the same topic, finding and evaluating the contradictions, and forming an opinion.
CHOOSE BOOK WORTH READING
Time filters out what works from what doesn’t.
Reading time is limited and should be directed at the knowledge that accumulates and compounds rather than something that quickly perishes.
READING SPEED