06/20/2024
They say "leaders are readers."
Agreed.
But books also take a lot of TIME!
Here's how to go through 40-50 books a year & get the most out of them in a fraction of the time. 👇
☑️FIND A SUMMARY OF THE BOOK FIRST.
Everand and Blinkist are both good, inexpensive tools for this. This provides the major takeaways from the book. If it's interesting, I'll check out 2 or 3 summaries. Total time, maybe 10-15 minutes.
With a summary or two, I have a much better idea if these are ideas I wish to explore further. If not, I save a lot of time wading through a whole book.
If the summaries do pique my interest, I'll dive in further...
☑️FIND INSIGHTS FROM THE AUTHOR ON THE BOOK.
Search YouTube & Podcasts. The author will often elaborate on key concepts, which provides a better feel for the content and the author. These are usually 5-20 minutes.
If I want to learn more, I continue on...
☑️READ THE BOOK.
Knew we'd get here eventually, right? ;)
By now I have a good idea what the book's about, I've heard from the author, explored the concepts a bit. And I'm taking all of that on the reading journey, like a frame I can build upon as I read.
And for this reading, about half the time I use Audible to listen to the book, usually at 1.25 or 1.5 speed, depending on the person speaking it. I'm an average speed reader, so this shaves off 2-3 hours off a book.
And for some books, this is the end of the road.
But for those chosen books that rise to the top, I go further....
☑️STUDY THE BOOK.
I go through the book again, this time more slowly. And I take notes, especially actionable insights. I begin applying the content in real ways to my situation.
In the end, I'll have pages of notes, a solid comprehension of the content, and a list of actions I can take to implement whatever transformation the book offered.
In my study, I might also dive further into the author's content, looking for their take on key concepts from the book. If I'm lucky, the author is also a public speaker or has a YouTube channel loaded with content.
SUMMARY
This process takes MUCH longer for the really good books, but much LESS time for the majority of books, which are just average or simply not worth diving further into.
Overall, I get far more value and save dozens of hours over the course of the year.
For me, that's a win!
Now I want to know... what's YOUR method? Any good tips or tricks you've pick up?
Do share...👇
