How Can You Read One Non-fiction Book Per Week

How You Tin Really Read 1 Non-Fiction Book Every Week

Between trying to make my online and freelancing businesses piece of work, keeping up with my friends, and enjoying some downtime, my nonfiction reading had decreased over the years.

This doesn�t hateful that I didn�t want to read more. In fact, reading more books was e'er at the top of my calendar for personal evolution. I merely didn�t manage to plow information technology into a priority and dedicate the time to it.

While I firmly believe that reading and success are correlated, the furnishings of regular reading can be subtle and long-term. That�south why it�s hard to convince yourself to read for three hours daily when you feel like your firm (read: your business organization and bank business relationship) is burning and there are gazillions of immediate deportment you should exist taking instead.

I decided to try out something unlike this yr. My goal was to create a habit to read one book per calendar week.

I knew it wasn�t going to happen in a conventional, read a book embrace-to-cover mode. Being realistic with my schedule and other priorities forced me to recall outside the box and create a reading method that allows me to read and absorb more in less time.

Before using this method, I never managed to make reading a steady habit. I was reading in bursts. I would read a whole volume on a weekend (needing allthe weekend to do it), feel burned out from reading this much, and not touch a book again for weeks. I read around 10�twenty books per twelvemonth simply always felt like I was falling short.

But now, non-fiction reading has go a steady addiction for me. Sure, there are some weeks when I don�t read a full volume�simply most of the time I do, and when I feel that my habit has slipped a flake, I�ve created ways to get myself back on track. It�due south the first of Nov as I am writing this, and I have already read about the double corporeality of books I have read all concluding year.

Here is how I did it.

Prerequisite: Give Your Reading Clear Purpose

Every bit with any other habit or claiming, things are significantly more difficult if you lack a clear goal or effect. According to Dr. Bill Klemm, professor of neuroscience at Texas A&Thousand,

�[e]veryone should have a purpose for their reading and remember nigh how that purpose is beingness fulfilled during the actual reading.�

This is truthful for both the general purpose of wanting to read more than (Why read more at all?) also as each specific volume itself (Why am I reading this book in particular?)

I certainly roughshod into the category of people who wanted to read more just for the sake of reading more, and because I believed that this is what I needed to do. Before setting my goal of reading a book a week I never defined the desired outcome to my reading, neither in general nor to the specific books that I have read.

Pace i: Define your overall purpose

Why practise you lot want to read more?

At that place are infinite possible answers to this, only your answer needs to be more specific than �to expand my knowledge�.

What goals are you pursuing by reading more? Identifying your purpose will proceed you on runway by guiding your choices towards books that are relevant to y'all.

Here are some examples:

• To have a more holistic worldview in terms of world philosophies
• To generate more ideas for expanding or marketing your business
• To get to know other people�s life stories and learn from their mistakes and successes
• To learn virtually social dynamics, and to improve your relationships and daily interactions
• To amend yourself: gain more self-confidence, learn to love yourself, and heal from by traumas

Y'all might accept twenty such goals, or you might only have ane; technically speaking, it doesn�t thing (though, for practicality�s sake, yous might want to cull the nigh important few). The important matter is that you know for yourself why reading is important to you, personally, and that y'all choose your books co-ordinate to that purpose.

This helps you choose the right books to read, just too helps yous say �no� to books that aren�t relevant to your goals. That means you avoid collecting a stack of books driven by FOMO or feelings that you �should� read them � but truthfully lack the enthusiasm to spend time on them.

Stride ii: Expect for what is relevant to you within each volume

Knowing what you roughly desire to get out of a specific volume will help y'all to stay on runway and focus on the virtually relevant parts. There is then much data in every volume and your brain merely has a limited chapters, especially when it comes to long-term retention.

Defining beforehand which topics volition exist important to you volition put you in an attentive mindset and help you divide what is relevant to you lot and what�s not in every particular book.

Defining your purpose, put it into practice

To alter my attitude and goal towards reading worked wonders for me in staying on track. Here is an example of how this tin look similar in practice:

I of my personal goals for reading more is to build upwardly a basic knowledge of natural sciences. I am a humanist and feel like I have meaning gaps when it comes to mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and all the hard sciences.

That�s how I have stumbled upon The Jazz of Physics, a book written by physicist and musician Stephon Alexander, which explains complex concrete questions and theories through musical concepts. I have an agreement of musical concepts, so this was a great book for this purpose.

However, information technology also includes lots of biographical details and oftentimes has more than of a storytelling grapheme. While Alexander�s life is super interesting, it didn�t serve my purpose when reading his book, and so I didn�t direct my focus to it and selected what was relevant for me, instead.

Starting any new book with a purpose makes a big deviation considering it comes with firsthand results, rather than aimless reading. In this example, grasping new concrete concepts was a very tangible outcome, as opposed to only having broadened my worldview in some vague mode.

The Methodology for Reading More

What does it mean to have read a book?

Based on the goals above, what you lot demand to enquire yourself is: what does it mean to you lot to have read a book? Is a book only read when you�ve seen every give-and-take of it? Or is information technology rather when you have institute what you lot were looking for in the first identify?

For my undertaking to read a book a week, I have redefined the definition of reading a book. Rather than having read it give-and-take for word, I say that I have read a book once I:

• Tin can properly explicate information technology to someone
• Can discuss it
• Know what I tin can use it as a reference for
• Know what the book contains, even in the parts that I haven�t read

Why you don�t have to read from comprehend to cover

What kept me dorsum so far from reading more than amongst others was my definition of having read a volume. Reading a book, for me, always meant reading from encompass to cover. Which is fine if it is i of the exceptional pieces that keeps you lot hooked from the kickoff sentence and for which you strength yourself to stay awake all night long.

Nearly books are not like this. Nigh books have i or the other good idea you might apply for a long time to come, while you will forget almost the rest.

It�southward not that most books are bad (although many are). It�s that as yous read more than, your noesis and reading experience compounds�and in that location will be less and less groundbreaking information for you lot.

My way of reading books from embrace to cover was getting in my way, instead of providing more value. I don�t savor all parts of about books, and so I was slow, getting nowhere, forgetting where I was, and I ended up reading 1 book for several weeks. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, I was plagued by FOMO � what if I miss the essence if I terminate now? Every fourth dimension I put a book bated without finishing it I had a bad censor and the feeling that I cannot follow through on annihilation.

How to read books instead

That�south why it was such a relief to effigy out that I don�t accept to read books all the manner through. I was the simply i who was forcing myself to practice this.

This insight came later an elaborate discussion of Jordan Peterson�s 12 Rules for Life with a friend. When request nigh when she read the book she said �I didn�t. I just read a lot about it.�

In the 21st century, every book comes with more than (completely free!) data almost it than you know what to exercise with. It�s a mistake to not make good use of that information. I similar to call this the additional layers of a book: book descriptions, audiobooks, writer interviews, podcasts, vlogs dedicated to summarizing books, ratings, reviews, and so much more.

By turning to these additional layers you can collect a big puddle of information and blot big parts of the content in a short time through multiple channels.

The keen affair nigh writer interviews, Ted Talks, and podcasts revolving around a book is that they focus on the essential stuff and cut out all the noise.

See it this way: When you�ve spent a year writing a book and are given 20 minutes to talk about it to a large audition, y'all�ll be sure to focus on its biggest takeaways and aha-moments.

These additional layers of a volume are invaluable resources for reading and learning more in less time.

How to Read a Book

In the following paragraphs, I volition walk you through my process of reading a book pace by step, relying on these boosted layers of books, for the most part.

Y'all can read any book like this in less than half a solar day and be able to take lengthy discussions near information technology subsequently.

Step one: What is the book nigh?

What y'all are looking for first is a rough overview of the whole book. For this, simply Google [title of the book + summary] and read 2�three overviews,depending on their length. Some books take astonishing video summaries. If you�re the audio-visual type, and then that�s a not bad supplement.

This lone leaves you lot with the master ideas of the book, plus its most important points, in less than 30 minutes.

Step 2: What does the author say it�southward virtually?

How does the author present their book? When forced to condense their volume into 20�xxx minutes, they will make sure to focus on the essentials, key points, and his biggest findings, and so this is a perfect fashion for you to take note and learn of these. You can do this in two means (I usually do both, considering the two are different):

a) Listen to an interview with the author (due east.g. podcast)

This is a way of dialogue where the interviewer asks some (critical) questions and the author explains their book via the answers to those questions.

b) Sentry a book presentation of the author (due east.m. academy talk or TED-talk)

This is where the author will speak freely nearly his or her findings. Commonly, this is both about summarizing the volume every bit well equally generating curiosity well-nigh it, so such presentations usually present the biggest aha-moments and almost important parts of the book well.

Step 3: What exercise readers have to say almost information technology?

The concluding step of going through the additional book layers is to read through its reviews. Read the most helpful 5-, four-, iii-, 2- and i-star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads (both platforms will evidence yous the best-rated, about helpful reviews first).

This volition give you�

1. An first-class idea about what others took away from the book, what they liked and didn�t like (the book�s strengths and weaknesses), and its biggest takeaways for readers.
2. Which passages are really worth reading: at this indicate, annotation downward the parts that are either frequently mentioned in the reviews or that personally strike you as interesting, based on the reviews.

Pace 4: Open up the book and read � only just certain parts of information technology!

Only after completing all the to a higher place steps exercise I accept the book into my easily and get-go reading parts of it. I recommend you practice this the following way:

• Read the get-go and last chapter of the volume

If you are a reader who too writes, yous surely have heard that the commencement and last parts of your writing have to actually kick in: If the first chapter sucks, nobody will finish what you wrote and if the concluding affiliate sucks, it�ll go out people directionless and disappointed. Both accept to be excellent. Authors know this, so information technology is worth reading the showtime and terminal capacity of whatsoever volume start to get a further thought of the message it wants to convey.

• Read those parts that you lot took note of while going through the reviews (step 3)

Subsequently having read the first and last chapters, jump to those parts that other readers found worth mentioning in their reviews. This will give yous a further idea virtually the main points of the book.

• Skim the residuum similar a mag and take annotation of what each affiliate is roughly about

To do this, read the showtime few sentences of each chapter, skim its pages and write down what they are roughly about in the course of marginalia.

I find it helpful to read with a pen or pencil in hand or � if reading on Kindle � with fingers ready to mark passages, even if just skimming. This helps yous focus on getting the gist of what y'all�re reading, read more critically, stay more than alert and keep your mind from wandering.

Information technology doesn�t mean that yous have to mark lots of passages. I actually discourage you from marker as well much, every bit highlighting everything has the same effect equally highlighting aught. Highlighting just the most important info will assistance you go from passive reading mode to analyzing mode which will let you grasp any book a lot better.

�The intellectual is, quite simply, a human being who has a pencil in his or her hand when reading a book.�

George Steiner

How to Process a Volume and Transfer Information technology to Your Long-Term Memory

The process described to a higher place takes approximately iii�4 hours and will exit you with a thorough understanding of any non-fiction book. Yet, since you oasis�t spent equally much fourth dimension with the volume as you lot commonly would when reading from embrace to cover, you will need to take a few additional steps to help yous remember and brand the most of it.

I propose you exit some time (i or two nights) between reading and processing to let things sink in � this will help y'all see the cloth from a chip of a distance and focus on what is valuable and what�s non.

What you cannot remember one or two days later probably wasn�t that important anyway.

I keep a book periodical for processing books. It used to be an actual, paw-written journal, but I have switched to digital lately (I use a folder with Google Docs now). It�s faster and cannot get lost, but information technology�s really a thing of preference. For every book, I open a separate Google Doc.

The following steps are all optional. I don�t do whatsoever of them for a volume I didn�t like and do all of them if for 1 I loved. Nearly books fall somewhere in between.

The steps are chronological and the more of them y'all complete, the more thoroughly you�ll process the new information.

ane. How did the book serve the initial purpose of reading it?

Did you find what you were looking for when choosing this book? Which questions did you receive answers to? Did you learn any new concepts in the fields of your interests? If the reply is no to all of these questions, this might exist the indicate you�ll terminate going farther with processing the book.

2. Write a book summary in max 3 sentences

Think of this equally writing a blurb for the book. If you had to describe what the book was about very quickly to someone, what would you lot say?

3. Write about the book to an imaginary friend

Think of this every bit a chip longer summary (ane/ii to ane folio) where you explain the book in a footling more particular to someone.

4. What were the three biggest insights for you?

This is about thinking of the ways this book surprised you and the new things you lot take learned from it that you take found interesting � its added value to your life.

5. What is the one thing that you lot would like to take away or employ to your own life?

As much as we are motivated in the offset, it is seldom that nosotros apply a whole book step-by-step for an extended menstruum. If we are honest, few books are real game-changers, simply about books have at to the lowest degree one important and applicable takeaway. What is this and how can you utilise it in the future?

6. Categorize the book

For which topics in your writing, piece of work, career or general conversations can this book be a time to come reference for? Where could you quote the book?

Every bit a writer who reads a lot, I dearest collecting futurity references and categorizing what I need. This style I know where to turn to later when it comes to specific topics I need references for. I prefer to put every book into three�x main categories.

The Art of Follow Through: How to Jump Back Subsequently Some Downtime

While the method I outlined in a higher place makes it much easier, faster, and more than actionable to read and cover ane book every week, it doesn�t mean that you lot will actually find the time or energy to do it every single week. It�southward still a delivery of 4�5 hours of concentration you lot have to clip off your free time.

Am I going to read 52 books this yr? Probably not. It�s calendar week number 45 equally I am writing this and I take only finished book 37, meaning I have skipped 7 weeks so far and volition probable have to skip one or two until the end of the year.

But guess what: that doesn�t affair. I have nonetheless read more ever this year, and I knew what I was doing and had a clear purpose for every book in my mind. That�south what matters to me. Equally with every other addiction, what you are aiming for is general, sustainable consistency.

What entices me to skip weeks in the first place boils down to 3 master factors:

• time,
• not knowing what to read next or non having the time or energy to search for the next book, and
• not �feeling like it� �little reading burnouts from all the advice out at that place.

Here is what helps me overcome each of these factors:

Fourth dimension: reserve the processing for the really awesome, mind-bending stuff

Call back: Your goal is to read one volume per week, not to memorize all of them. Effectually half of all the books that I accept read made it to my book-periodical (bated from step i) and I have done all steps of processing for a total of half dozen of them � the ones that really, genuinely opened my optics and that I desire to remember for years to come. Yuval Noah Harari�southward Sapiens was such a piece, also as Stephen King�s On Writing�but ingenious books like these are rare out at that place.

What to read side by side: ask people close to you for recommendations

When I�m unsure of what to read next or don�t feel motivated to discover a book in the first place I ask someone close to me the following question:

�What�south a book that inverse your life?�

Just the fact that a book inverse the life of someone close to me makes it very interesting from the get-go. It might not change my life as well, but it will sure help me sympathise that person improve which is a big motivation past itself that pushes me. This too ways that you get to discuss the book later on with that person.

Reading exhaustion: read fiction outside of your dedicated non-fiction reading time

This might sound contradictory, but it can be very demotivating to dedicate all your reading time to not-fiction if yous are a person who likes fiction books merely as much. Fiction books might not have the hands-on mentality and advice that not-fiction books have, but a gripping piece of fiction carries a possibility of wonder and excitement no not-fiction book does.

I read a few pages of fiction with my morning coffee and on most nights before I go to bed. In total, I still read manner fewer fiction books (every bit I read those from cover-to-cover), but the diverseness keeps me motivated and leaves me a lot more freedom in the books I choose.

How You Can Get Started and Read One Book Today

Shifting my perspective on what reading a book ways to me completely changed all my not-fictional reading experiences. Expanding my horizon further to the several multimedia layers books have was the exact stride that I needed to finally manage reading a book per week, on a consistent basis.

If you add it all together, the above process doesn�t take more than 4�5 foreseeable hours. This means that y'all can do it; everyone can. Even the busiest people in the world accept four�v hours per week for something that�s of import to them.

If you�re not sure where to start, you can either�

a) option up the one book you�ve meant to read for a while, only never got effectually to, or

b) if there is no such book on your listen right at present, define your biggest reading purpose and find the best books related to this topic (e.g. via Amazon), or

c) enquire someone shut to you lot about the book that changed their life, and become from in that location.

Call back that higher success or intelligence is not near the number of books you consumed by whoever defined what proper reading is. It is the knowledge y'all chemical compound, the lessons yous larn, and the things you take away and use in the long run that counts.

Read for retention of what�s important, not for the sake of reading. Call back that you too can read a whole book today � or on any mean solar day � starting right now.

ORIGINAL:

https://medium.com/meliorate-humans/how-you-tin-actually-read-one-non-fiction-book-every-week-76672f13dee9

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