How to Get the Most Out of Reading Books
Don’t read too many books. Read good books multiple times.
Many popular science, academic, and philosophical books are watered-down versions of dense, in-depth source material. It’s like taking rich, flavorful chicken broth and adding extra water to make it less intense. While this makes the books easier to read, it reduces the nuance, detail, and depth of the original sources.
If you are worried about not being able to read all the books you want to read in your lifetime, like many book lovers, remember that reading most books is just a waste of time.
1. Don’t Read too Many Books, Read Good Books Multiple Times
Focus on primary sources. You don’t have to understand every single word at the first glance. Read them again and again. Your brain will continue to understand during the moments when you’re resting, sleeping, walking, and of course, taking a shower!
Read by drawing, taking notes, and asking questions. To better understand a topic and retain information, conducting an internet search, watching a video, or reading an article can be helpful. These explorations not only enhance comprehension but also aid in retention. The more you experience a subject, the more it becomes a part of you.
Acquiring knowledge is not enough. The real issue is to internalize it within all of your thoughts. Like a ping-pong ball jumping around, you must toss around the information with various questions and notes until it reaches every corner of your mind. Then, they will no longer be just quotes from others, but original ideas that have been surrendered to you.
2. Highlight the Words, Do Not Underline Them
Underlining with a pen or pencil makes reading the book more difficult, and reduces the effectiveness of the methods I will explain below.
Two different methods can be tried while highlighting:
- Two or three different colors can be used to indicate the importance of the lines highlighted. For example: Green (Normal), Blue (Important), and Red (Very Important) (This method is more suitable for academic researchers.)
- The other method is to use only one color and indicate the importance level with marks such as exclamation points, stars, etc. This method is more useful for me because when I read the same book again and think that some new lines I noticed are also important, I mark them with a different color of pen. This way, I can distinguish which places I highlighted on which reading. It is clear that the highlights from the last readings are usually more important.
You can limit some of your re-readings to only the highlighted areas. This will give you the opportunity to quickly go over the main points. That’s why I created a class called “Normal” for highlighted areas. Because I believe it’s not just necessary to highlight the most important parts, but also the paragraphs that best summarize the topic being discussed.
After the first reading of a book, doing these summary readings every one or two months is incredibly effective, even though they take a short amount of time. Even the parts you are not reading will be called to your memory.
After many years, the lines you found important may decrease or change. One of the best things about using a highlighter pen is that over time it fades or even completely disappears. And this makes re-reading old books easier.
3. How to Take Notes: The Most Efficient Way
The main purpose of notes is to create personal data under certain topic headings that you can always refer to. You should add source information (book title, author, page, etc.).
If your notes are in a digital environment, of course, it provides a unique ease of searching by keywords and copying. Collecting notes from many different sources over the years not only gives you a strong memory but also a tremendous opportunity to create a versatile perspective on a specific subject. Take a look at them to refresh your knowledge from time to time, or harvest the ideas when writing an article on a similar topic.
4. Focus on Specific Subjects for a Long Time
Focus is the most crucial element of learning techniques. When reading or working, focusing on what is required at that moment is the first step. Reading in a distractive place, while traveling, listening to music, playing with your phone, or when half asleep in bed will not work.
Focusing on the same subject is another important point. Hopping from one subject to another can greatly reduce learning efficiency, more than most people think. Trying to read books that are unrelated and contain a lot of information, either at the same time or one after the other, can cause memory confusion. It’s okay to read various genres of books, such as novels and poetry, for mental breaks. But if you get confused sometimes, such as “Where did I read this information?”, that will result in storing what you’ve learned in your mind incorrectly.
In long-term learning studies, you need to read, listen, and think about the same subject every day and systematically. It doesn’t have to be too much. Even if the effort given at the conscious level is small, your mind will do an incredible job in your subconscious. The new synapses between your neurons will strengthen with each signal and what you have learned will become permanent. Continuously approaching a subject from different angles also leads to the creation of new connections, as this is where new ideas come from. Because creativity is about making connections.
To summarize, reading five books in the same field throughout the year will provide you with limited knowledge. You may only be able to make small references to the topics discussed in those books during conversations. If you take the time to finish them all within two months, take notes, think about them, and re-read them, you will know that topic better than most people!
We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
5. Discuss What You Read with Others
Discussing your recent readings with close friends and family, sharing important passages on social media, and even starting debates about them are some essential strategies for internalizing the books you have read.
Especially on philosophical subjects, there are often different opinions instead of a clear truth. Therefore, taking the idea of a thinker as absolute truth can lead you to a misunderstanding that grows like a snowball over time.
Discussing a topic is about examining all the information together, cross-examining, synthesizing, and ultimately finding a common truth or at least purifying the mistakes of both sides. It is not just about eliminating what you know is wrong, what you misunderstand, or what is wrong information. You understand what others think, and more importantly, how they think.
You can often discover many authors, ideas, and perspectives through conversations with others. It is like gathering intelligence for your deeper research. Do not underestimate anyone’s knowledge or abilities. They may not know as much as you do, but they definitely know something you don’t.
6. Blogging
One of the most basic elements in Feynman’s learning techniques is this: If you can’t easily explain something, you haven’t actually learned it. Often in conversations, it is not possible to fully explain a topic. If a well-structured oral explanation is needed, then written preparation is required.
If you believe you comprehend and internalize the information you read, this may not always be the case. Reading something and being able to recite it back will not lead to actively engaging with it. Because no matter how much you know, you haven’t experienced it. Being able to explain something in your own words is a sign that you have a deep understanding of the material and can apply it in different contexts.
Writing about a topic means organizing it in the simplest way possible. This organization includes basic elements such as a standard introduction-development-conclusion template, main headings, subheadings, the purpose of the text, the thesis, supporting arguments, and opponents. When explaining a concept, using examples, analogies, and metaphors can help the reader. This also increases your understanding of the concept. Now you have the most powerful and straightforward way to explain the concepts you’ve learned to others.
The information you’ve thought about and worked on becomes your own personal wealth. When you come across books that explain similar topics in a more superficial way, you’ll be able to quickly skim and put them aside. So all this effort actually saves you a lot of time and effort.
Reading a Book is Like Talking to Dead People
Let’s end with one last thing. Talking to people should enrich you. Especially if you have the chance to spend time with someone who is curious, knowledgeable, and can express themselves well. The more one reads, the more one learns; the more one learns, the more lonely one becomes. Conversations with most people become unappealing.
On the other hand, good books give us what no conversation can, beyond the superficiality of knowledge. You can wander in the author’s mind, and find the purest form of thoughts that have tormented her/him in sleepless nights and absent-minded days. You can have the essence of a person’s life at the price of paper and ink. And at your command, in the way you want, you can stay on a sentence for as long as you want and can go back to it again and again. The author has dedicated themselves to serving your understanding of all their ideas.
Reading books is the courage to desire change for those who are not satisfied with themselves. If you’re lucky, you’ll not only change but also transform.
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