Get back to basics. Understanding the basics, as boring as it sounds, is one of the key elements of effective thinking. A lot of people assume the basics are not important and never really take the time to learn them, preferring the sexiness of complexity. Understanding a simple idea deeply, however, creates more lasting knowledge and builds a solid foundation for complex ideas later.Build your foundation. The key here is brutal honesty with yourself about what you really know.

Understanding Deeply

What has been will continue to be. Something that is not fading away is here to stay.The nonperishable is anything that does not have organic or avoidable expiration dates.While produce and humans have a mathematical life expectancy that decreases with each day, some things, like books, increase in life expectancy with each passing day.The longer something non-perishable has lived, the longer we can expect it to live.

Time Can Predict Value

Are you making the most of your reading time?It turns out that most of the time the best way to improve your Reading Return on Invested Time (RROIT) is to carefully filter the books you read.If you’re wondering what to read, here are two simple ideas that we can combine to help us choose what to read next.

Choosing Your Next Book

Focus on reading basic ideas that have stood the test of time as a means to understand them better.Knowledge has a half-life. The most useful knowledge is a broad-based multidisciplinary education of the basics. These ideas are ones that have lasted, and thus will last, for a long time.

Understanding Time-Tested Ideas

The more basic knowledge you have … the less new knowledge you have to get

The multidisciplinary mind understands the basic ideas. Acquiring the basic mental models from multiple disciplines allows you to see things that other people can’t. You don’t need to understand the latest study in biology, but you sure as heck better understand the concept of evolution because it applies to so much more than animals.Understanding the basics allows us to predict what matters. Put simply, people who understand the basics are better at understanding second and subsequent order consequences.

Acquire The Basic Mental Models

Take a simple idea and take it seriously.

Get the simple two-step filter that I use to help me select what to read to improve my total return on invested reading time. Basically, I combine two ideas that both work together.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Choosing Your Next Book

How to Choose Your Next Book - Farnam Street

IDEA ABOUT

MORE LIKE THIS

How to Choose Your Next Book

Reading Better - Farnam Street

Reading Comprehension: How to Retain More of Every Book You Read

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Choosing Your Next Book

How to Choose Your Next Book - Farnam Street

IDEA ABOUT

MORE LIKE THIS

How to Choose Your Next Book

Reading Better - Farnam Street

Reading Comprehension: How to Retain More of Every Book You Read

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career