How to Read Efficiently
Reading to learn requires some effort. In order to make our reading as efficient as possible, we need to develop modular reading technique. The idea is that you can read for as little or as long as you wish and still not lose the thread of thought.
Create a Reading Routine
Set aside time each day to read. Some like to do this in the morning while others prefer to read in evening. Whatever schedule you prefer, choose a time when you can focus and are least likely to be interupted. How much time your spend reading isn’t as important as you might think.
Read in Short Chunks. Plan on reading for anyway from 10 to 30 minutes at a time. The average person can sustain focus for about 30 minutes while those who are trained to concentrate, can focus for about an hour #tk. Few, very few can focus longer. So what medium is best for reading?
Read on paper, or not
This is not a hard and fast rule, but it helps to improve focus and concentration. Reading on paper helps to avoid the distractions that come with digital devices. It also recruits more of our senses, such as the touch an feel of paper. The more of senses you can recruit, the better you will retain what you read. But what if you only have your phone to read from?
If you can’t read on paper, use your phone or tablet with a kindle or other reading app. Using a dedicated reading app reduces distractions by blocking out the rest of the available app. Also, you may want to silence your phone if you’re not expecting an important call or text. How do we read to maximize retention?
Take notes as you go
You will have to take notes with a pen and perhaps a highlighter in hand. Remember we talked about recruiting more of your senses? Taking notes by hand helps you to mentally filter what you’re reading and process so you can write it in your own words. It’s also a good idea to write in complete sentences. Capture and clarify those thoughts. But what about highlighting the text?
I use a Pen and a highlighter. Typically I will read a paragraph or section, depending on the organization of the text, then highlight keywords and key phrases. These keywords and key phrases are not, however, complete thoughts. After reading the section, I will look for those keywords and keyphrases then write out complete sentences explaining what I understand it to mean. Then I will add a reference so I can revisit the thought in the future.
References are very helpful. One of the better ways to track references, is to make a notecard with the title, author, publication or access date on one side. On the other side you will write down the thoughts that strike you and where in the document you found them.
Organize your notes
Reading without application is useless. This of course does not apply to fiction. Fiction is for entertainment, unless you’re doing a book review and need to take notes on a work of fiction. If that’s the case, this method works just as well. But how can you organize your body of knowledge?
There are several ways to organize your body of knowledge. Some of the most effective are the notecard method, Zettlekasten, and the commonplace book. They work on a similar principle. Make an index of a topic or category and have it point to the notes you created above. Explaining in detail is beyond the scope of this post, but you can find detailed instructions online.