The Art of Optimal Reading

The Art of Optimal Reading


Knowledge is power. Knowledge is information put to practice. Reading is your primary input for gathering information. In other words: learn how to read well and do it every day for the rest of your life.

...reading had probably a different significance for me from that which it has for the average run of our so-called 'intellectuals'. I know people who read interminably, book after book, from page to page, and yet I should not call them 'well-read people'. Of course they 'know' an immense amount; but their brain seems incapable of assorting and classifying the material which they have gathered from books. They have not the faculty of distinguishing between what is useful and useless in a book; so that they may retain the former in their minds and if possible skip over the latter while reading it, if that be not possible, then-when once read-throw it overboard as useless ballast. Reading is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents and capabilities that each individual possesses.

...the material which one has acquired through reading must not be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces and particles that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of the reader. Otherwise only a confused jumble of chaotic notions will result from all this reading. That jumble is not merely useless, but it also tends to make the unfortunate possessor of it conceited.

...On the other hand, one who has cultivated the art of reading will instantly discern, in a book or journal or pamphlet, what ought to be remembered because it meets one's personal needs or is of value as general knowledge. What he thus learns is incorporated in his mental analogue of this or that problem or thing, further correcting the mental picture or enlarging it so that it becomes more exact and precise. Should some practical problem suddenly demand examination or solution, memory will immediately select the opportune information from the mass that has been acquired through years of reading and will place this information at the service of one's powers of judgment so as to get a new and clearer view of the problem in question or produce a definitive solution.
Only thus can reading have any meaning or be worthwhile.

- ADOLF HITLER, MEIN KAMPF

To read every day is probably the most important habit a person can have. This post will teach you how to make the most of your time spent reading.
I think you will find that most of the things I speak of are really common sense. But few people seem to be actually applying it.
Content:

• What is NOT Optimal Reading:
• Optimal Reading
• Read with a Purpose
• Practical tips for Reading Optimally
• Conclusion

What is NOT Optimal Reading

To describe what something is, it's often easiest to start by giving some contrasts of what something is not.
Optimal reading is not about:

• Casually reading magazines, Internet forums, fiction, detective novels, girly romance books, and other easy-to-read books that provide no real knowledge.

• How much meaningless information you can memorize. There is little use in knowing the birthdate of J.K Rowlings or what Harry Potter's middle name is. That stuff might give you an edge in some dorky quiz show on television, but not in real life.

• Your reading speed. It doesn't matter whether you are the world's quickest reader if you aren't able to remember any of the information. To clarify; I am not talking down on the skill of quickly skimming through texts - that is a useful thing to be able to do; what I do mean is that speed reading is vastly overrated.

Optimal Reading

To read optimally you need to understand that reading is probably the most important tool at our disposal for gathering and learning new information. But like any other tool, it needs to directed toward a specific goal or its use will be haphazard.
Optimal reading is:

• Knowing what sort of books you want to read in order to get closer to your goals in different areas of your life. Keep a categorized book list and update it religiously. Categorize it in accordance with the fields of knowledge you are interested in improving your competence within. Reading just to gain random information is not an end in itself, limit most of your reading to a few niches that you want to be good at.

• Being able to efficiently memorize useful information and having the ability to quickly bring it up in relevant situations to aid you. Useful information is anything that can be applied practically in your life and get you closer to your goals; it's about understanding the implicationsof the information you take in. Don't memorize the plot of a book, focus on understanding the moral of the story.

• Becoming inspired and getting ideas. If you are able to get even a single new cool idea from reading a book it is a book well worth the read. The Nazis were inspired by books on Egyptian slavery to formulate the procedure of keeping certain concentration camps and burial sites secret by killing the Jews who did the construction work after they finished the work. Did you know that?

• Reading challenging books that improve your understanding.

• Improving your ability to focus and to activate your brain. Make it a point to read with intensity of focus. Take the same approach to reading that you would in the gym - to exercise your body. Except for reading it's more of a mental muscle.

Read with a Purpose

Read to solve a problem or answer a question you have.
If you want to become a skilled leader it would make sense for you to find the best books within the field of management and leadership. You would read books from authors such as Peter Drucker.
If you want to study the characteristics and personalities of some of the most successful human beings who ever lived, you must read their autobiographies. And to get a less subjective view you must read biographies of them written by other people.
If you want to learn how to write well it will be helpful for you to read the classics and the books about the craft.
Read with a purpose in mind. Do not read aimlessly as the masses do.
This is what a real education consists of.

Practical Tips for Optimal Reading

Once you have identified some purpose for why you are reading and what type of niche expertise you are going to excel in - once you have thought about these things for a sufficiently long time for you to have reached the turning point of clarity you then start reading with a heightened focus. You will now become more receptive to the things you want to learn.
Here are a few practical tips for you to apply at all times when reading to help you remain alert:

• Start taking notes immediately. Ask yourself: is the information I'm reading now worth memorizing? If so, write it down immediately. You want to start the process of taking notes as soon as possible even when you don't feel like it. The mind will come up with excuses not to do this because it wants to conserve energy, it takes less energy to continue reading than it does to memorize something. The mind will tell you that the information is not quite worth writing down, simply to keep you from starting. Remember, repetition is primary tool for learning.

• Don't fight your interests. Always be on lookout for interesting information. If you find something interesting, regardless of what it is, it is a sign that you want to learn this information. Personally I believe that our interests and passions are key indicators to follow in order to live well. Those who fight their passions and interests become dull and confused in the long-term.

• Don't fall asleep. You can be reading for five hours a day but it won't make much of a difference if your focus is off. Almost every time you "fall asleep" and lose focus it is because you forgot why you were reading. Keep your purpose in mind at all times. Ask yourself constantly: Why am I reading this? This is why school is boring to most people; they cannot find a reason sufficiently motivating to keep their brains activated.

• Know what to look for. If you don't know what to look for you will filter out most of the information and you will quickly forget it. The brain takes in enormous amounts of information for every second that passes but we are only consciously aware of tiny speck of this information.

• Compare what you are now reading with what you already know. The brain learns through a variety of ways, a major one being through associations. Make a deliberate decision to improve this faculty through practice. Ask yourself: how does this information fit in with what I already know? Do this a lot and you will start to find huge amounts similarities between seemingly in disconnected fields of knowledge. A great tool for this is to keep a commonplace book.

• If you thought the book was interesting or useful, read its quoted literature. A good example of this could be if you decide to read a biography about Napoleon Bonaparte, and then read a biographies of Fouche and Talleyrand. Or if you read about Hitler and then read about Göring and Himmler. That way you get a wider point of view of what actually happened. I think this is particularly necessary when it comes to biographies or history because authors within those fields tend to be very subjective (read: fanboys) in their narration of events.

• Note down new words or phrases in the back of your journal. You're bound to come across a lot of new words and expressions that you do not understand when you read a lot. List these things in the back of your journal and look them over to make sure that you know their meaning the next time you come across them.

Conclusion

In reading this post you probably learned something new - something that was interesting.


Write it down NOW and put it to use the next time you read!


Question: Why are you recommending to ask questions or to do other "distracting" things while reading, won't that impose on the efficacy or enjoyment of the reading process?

Answer: First of all you need to get clear about why you read. Is it to enjoy yourself or is it to learn things?
Secondly, yes it will probably reduce your reading speed as well as your enjoyment initially, but it is a price well worth paying in the long-term. Once you have practiced these things for a while you start to do them per automation and then it stops being a hindrance to the reading process. Consider these questions and exercises as mental muscles that need to be practiced just as if you were lifting weights or running.
In the beginning of this post I said that knowledge is power, but I was lying. Knowledge doesn't mean much unless applied appropriately.
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Other stuff you may enjoy:

• How to Read a Book, Mortimer J. Adler.

• A cool video

  by Rich Schefren about his process for "reading". Highly interesting, but not of practical value unless you are somewhat rich.

If you start experimenting with the things you learned here leave a comment and let me know how it worked out for you. Also, if you are using or know of other great ways of becoming a better reader I would be very interested in learning what these things are.