Reading gone wild! How to read five books a week (or why Scott Ginsberg is my hero) [Matt's Idea Blog]

One of the most popular topics here is reading efficiently, including How to read a lot of books in a short time and A reading workflow based on Leveen’s “Little Guide”. Using Leveen’s terminology, I have a candidates library of at least 50 books (i.e., purchased and in my bookcase), and a pre-candidates list of around 600 (kept on Amazon, but it’s not perfect). So I really want to read a lot (actually, to learn a lot), but the problem is my eyes are bigger than my stomach, and I’ve fallen behind. This is in spite of outsourcing voice note transcription [1].

Thankfully, I came across Scott Ginsberg’s post [2] Before we make our move, let’s call… where he writes in passing:

(FYI, I read five books a week.)

This was just the whack to the head [3] I needed! The essential idea I forgot? I don’t need to read the whole book. D’oh! He elaborates in How to read a book (part two here):

You don’t need to read every word.
You don’t need to devour every page.
You don’t need to understand every concept.

Just get the key ideas.

(See his post for details.) I have to say, it’s great to reminded of the basics, but humbling as well.

So in true Ideamatt fashion I decided to try an experiment: I would read five books, one hour per book, for five days straight to test and cement the idea. (This is really just a straightforward application of Parkinson’s law, commonly “Work expands to fill the time available,” a principle I’ve avoided before now.)

Guess what? It works. The one hour limit really focuses the mind, and makes it a challenging kind of race. To be honest I’ve only tried it for three days, but so far I’ve read:

I hope to keep this pace up.

Does it apply equally to every book? No; some clearly are worth further study. But can it be applied to every book? Sure! An hour will still give you a good sense of the concepts, and whether the work warrants more time. (Note that this philosophy is an nice application of The 80/20 Principle, which says not all books are of the vital few. Many books - esp. time time management books at this time - are in the trivial many.)

Up for a challenge? Try it for a week and share your results! Here’s a summary of the steps:

  1. Choose a nice reading spot.
  2. Block out an hour of uninterrupted time.
  3. Calculate briefly how fast you’ll need to go. A simple baseline is average time/page. For example, a 250 page book means you can only spend about 15 seconds/page! Clearly skimming skills are crucial.
  4. Gather your supplies - timer/watch, water, book, note-taking tool.
  5. Start your timer and dig in using your favorite reading method. I had good luck with SQ3R, though a teacher friend of mine was able to rattle off six from the top of his head.
  6. As you read, keep focused! You are a machine, enjoying pushing as fast as necessary.

References

Original post here: Matthew Cornell

29 October 2007 | 80-20, Productivity, reading | Comments

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