Make sure that book in hand talks to you
I am a totally book lover.They have been my guide for so many years. I love reading leadership books, management books, biographies .
One thing which I know very well that reading books require good time which most of us struggle to find in life.
When I started my motherhood I actually had to give break to book reading to great extent and was itching to go back to it. 3 months back I could finally figure out time to start reading book and at the same time I wanted to be as effective as I could be as I still have toddler at home.
In last 2 months I figure out few tips which helps me getting most out of all time investment which I make in book reading.
Know about book
Don’t jump to chapters, before even picking up the book most of us read what the book is about. Now I also read reviews on amazon/goodreads to understand what people are learning from this book which gives me some insight to decide whether I want to read this book or not.
After picking the book I go through the index of book to further understand that it has some thing which I would be interested to read at this point in time.
Start building interest in book
While going through the index, if I find some topic which sounds really interesting, I jump directly to that chapter to evaluate whether the way writer is trying to convey message, will it resonate with me or not. I am evaluating whether I will be able to understand author ideas and able to do something about it. If at this step I am not convinced that I should invest my time here, I just put the book back to my shelf and go on with new one.
I find doing this very useful because I don’t want to force a book on to me just because I purchased it. Another advantage of doing this exercise is that If I become interested this book then I would look forward to spend time with it every day, same way we figure out time to watch next episode on that exciting web series.
Just know all about it quickly
This step is for someone like me who is very impatient and will read synopsis of every episode of interesting series because I want to know what all is there.
I would quickly skim through the book by going through major headings and little bit of reading so that I know what all this book is offering me. It helped me to have focus when I am trying to get best out of the book in next book.
Don’t put timeline to read
Here I spend as much time as I want in the book, I wont be in hurry to finish the book because I am convinced that this is right book for me and its going to help me in some way. I know people say that have a goal of 1 book a month or so, I tried doing that but then I was more focused on timeline than book, I am okay to spend 2 months or whatever time needed on that book. So rather than having 1 book a month goal, spending 30 mins everyday works better for me. Books are my guide, I want to share my issues with them and I want to understand if they have advice or insight to offer me. So basically are those letters talking to me.
How to start or end reading session
So before I end my reading session I would summarise in my head what did I read, how it impacts me, what can I do about it. My reading session next day also starts with summarising my previous day reading and if I want to read that again. This is to remind me that I am not in a race to finish books. My purpose from this book is not to finish but to understand. As I said I am impatient this exercise is helping me being patient and not always looking towards what is next.
Weekly notes
As I told that I still do not have luxury of spending as much time as I want on books . I reserve my Sunday 30 mins or so to make notes for my weekly reading, which I can quickly refer anytime, I use tools like Evernote so that it can be synced though devices and I have those available in my mobile also.
In Evernote you can add images and pdf as well so that I don’t need to type all of them.
Here is some data on my book reading for last 2 months which convinced me that this works.
Number of books finished reading: 1 complete and another one not even half.
Number of books rejected after step 1: 5
Number of books continued after step 2: 3
Number of books rejected after step 2: 5
Number of books rejected after step 3: 1
Ideas implemented in 2 months: 6
For me last number matters the most, I hope it is the same case for you as well , if you are looking for ROI from books.
