How To Read And Extract The Most Information When You Have No Time.
This is a skill I mastered when I was in college. You know, those days where knowledge is arbitraged for alphabet grades? How can we do so by using the least amount of time?
Do you remember reference books? I mean those thick hardcover books where it takes 1,000 plus pages to get through from the front to the end?
Yes, I remember. When it comes to applied psychology and strategic management, reaching the final page destination is mission impossible.
Well, almost.
Almost. This is because I discovered the secrets of decoding a 1,000-page book into a keynote version within an hour.
This is what we need to do.
First step. Read what the others say about the book and the author. We can find it in the book blurb.
That would give a good idea of what the book is good for.
Next, read the prologue. This explains the birth of the book, why the author wrote what he wrote.
When we understand the author’s intent, the content of the book falls in place immediately.
Then head straight to the Table of Contents. Read this like the skeleton of the book. Stitch the chapter headers together, and you will have the 5-minute keynote version of the book.
If time is an issue — Stop here.
We would already have the author’s intent, reviews from others, content page keyword summary.
It is good enough for a party conversation.
If we can spare another 10–15 minutes, we can proceed to do the following.
Read the introduction and then conclusion chapter back to back. We would have covered the hypothesis and conclusion of findings without the need to slog through the process details.
That would cover the keynote summary plus high-level details.
Again, stop here as we wish. We would have gotten 50% or slightly more.
If we have more time to spare, then this is the last step I recommend.
Read the other chapters focusing on the topic sentences of every paragraph. Why so?
That is because every author — especially academic writers — writes with structure. The opening sentence of each paragraph is meant to introduce the idea of that paragraph.
They aren’t copywriters with fanciful styles. They write to present their thoughts in a structured fashion.
Once we decode their structure, it is easy to create our own cheat sheet.
This is mine.
I hope this will be helpful to you.
Happy Reading!
Aldric
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