A Comprehensive Guide to Reading Non-Fiction Books for Optimal Growth
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Reading non-fiction books can be a transformative experience, enhancing your knowledge, skills, and perspectives. However, to maximize the benefits, it's essential to adopt effective reading strategies. Here’s a guide to help you make the most of your non-fiction reading journey:
1. Recognize the Value**
Nothing in the world can match the ROI of a great book. A well-chosen book can provide insights, knowledge, and perspectives that are invaluable.
2. Select Wisely
You don’t need to finish every book you start. Develop the skill of not finishing okay books and bad books. Spend most of your time with great books. A secret for super-learning: Buy many books, start most of them, but finish just a small fraction of them.
3. Avoid the Status Game
Don’t turn book reading into a status game. The goal is to learn and grow, not to impress others with the number of books you've read.
4. Absorb Principles, Not Just Facts
The main function of a book is to act as training data for the LLM (Large Language Model) inside of you. This means you haven’t actually done a great job with reading a book if you can merely regurgitate facts from that book. Focus on internalizing the implicit principles and ideas rather than just storing facts.
5. Flexibility in Reading
Books don’t come with a user manual for a reason. You can use them however you like. There are no rules that must be followed. Books need not be read sequentially. Feel free to jump around to the sections that interest you most.
6. Utilise Books Beyond Reading
Most people read books. But books have 2 purposes: they are meant to be read AND they are meant to be used. A good book should be read once, but used multiple times. When reading a book the first time, you’re doing two distinct jobs: learning from it and making it more user-friendly for your future self.
7. Mark Up Your Books
Shed the habit of keeping books in pristine condition. The best way to appreciate a good book is to make it look thoroughly tainted by the time you’re done reading it. Use underlines, sidenotes, and dogears to mark important sections.
8. Efficiently Review Your Notes
You can use a good book (that you’ve already read) in multiple ways:
9. Adapt Reading to Your Setting
Book consumption is less about having the time to read books and more about the physical setting you are in. In some settings, it is impossible to read a book, such as when driving, walking, or cleaning. In such cases, listen to audiobooks. A useful policy: listen to a lot of books and then proceed to buy and read the best ones (multiple times). This is better for training your LLM.
10. Vet New Books
Before investing time towards reading a newly published book, listen to the author’s podcast interview (almost every author does a podcast tour to promote their book), and then decide if you want to buy and read the book.
11. Reflect Your True Priorities
The types of books you choose to read reveal your true priorities better than your stated priorities. Be mindful of your selections and ensure they align with your genuine interests and goals.
12. Focus on Lessons, Not Just Stories
When learning from a book, pay particular attention to the underlying lesson. Pay very little attention to the stories and the proof that the author deftly presents to support the lesson—they are often tools of manipulation. Do not outsource your thinking.
By following these tips, you can transform your non-fiction reading into a powerful tool for personal and professional development. Happy reading!
1. Recognize the Value**
Nothing in the world can match the ROI of a great book. A well-chosen book can provide insights, knowledge, and perspectives that are invaluable.
2. Select Wisely
You don’t need to finish every book you start. Develop the skill of not finishing okay books and bad books. Spend most of your time with great books. A secret for super-learning: Buy many books, start most of them, but finish just a small fraction of them.
3. Avoid the Status Game
Don’t turn book reading into a status game. The goal is to learn and grow, not to impress others with the number of books you've read.
4. Absorb Principles, Not Just Facts
The main function of a book is to act as training data for the LLM (Large Language Model) inside of you. This means you haven’t actually done a great job with reading a book if you can merely regurgitate facts from that book. Focus on internalizing the implicit principles and ideas rather than just storing facts.
5. Flexibility in Reading
Books don’t come with a user manual for a reason. You can use them however you like. There are no rules that must be followed. Books need not be read sequentially. Feel free to jump around to the sections that interest you most.
6. Utilise Books Beyond Reading
Most people read books. But books have 2 purposes: they are meant to be read AND they are meant to be used. A good book should be read once, but used multiple times. When reading a book the first time, you’re doing two distinct jobs: learning from it and making it more user-friendly for your future self.
7. Mark Up Your Books
Shed the habit of keeping books in pristine condition. The best way to appreciate a good book is to make it look thoroughly tainted by the time you’re done reading it. Use underlines, sidenotes, and dogears to mark important sections.
8. Efficiently Review Your Notes
You can use a good book (that you’ve already read) in multiple ways:
- Got 5 minutes? Skim through your underlines on all the pages you’ve dogeared (the best stuff).
- 15 minutes? Skim through all the underlines.
- 60 minutes? Carefully read all the underlines and remind yourself why they resonated and consider how your recent experience enriches your prior understanding of these underlines.
9. Adapt Reading to Your Setting
Book consumption is less about having the time to read books and more about the physical setting you are in. In some settings, it is impossible to read a book, such as when driving, walking, or cleaning. In such cases, listen to audiobooks. A useful policy: listen to a lot of books and then proceed to buy and read the best ones (multiple times). This is better for training your LLM.
10. Vet New Books
Before investing time towards reading a newly published book, listen to the author’s podcast interview (almost every author does a podcast tour to promote their book), and then decide if you want to buy and read the book.
11. Reflect Your True Priorities
The types of books you choose to read reveal your true priorities better than your stated priorities. Be mindful of your selections and ensure they align with your genuine interests and goals.
12. Focus on Lessons, Not Just Stories
When learning from a book, pay particular attention to the underlying lesson. Pay very little attention to the stories and the proof that the author deftly presents to support the lesson—they are often tools of manipulation. Do not outsource your thinking.
By following these tips, you can transform your non-fiction reading into a powerful tool for personal and professional development. Happy reading!