deepstash
Beta
Books are good for your brain. These techniques will help you read more.
How to fit in more reading
We often struggle to find time to read. That's why we need to start small.
- Read five pages of a book that interests you every day. When you are comfortable with five pages, try ten, then twenty.
- The book should interest you. Reading a book of your choice makes the activity a pleasure to look forward to.
- It helps to keep the book, audiobook app, or e-reader on you. Then, when you have some downtime, you can read instead of playing a smartphone game.
134 SAVES
This is a professional note extracted from an online article.
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:
4
Key Ideas
Why you should embrace books
Reading is essential for a healthy brain. Reading continues to develop the brains of adults and might help slow down or even stop cognitive decline.
Regular readers show more empathy for other people.
How to fit in more reading
We often struggle to find time to read. That's why we need to start small.
- Read five pages of a book that interests you every day. When you are comfortable with five pages, try ten, then twenty.
- The book should interest you. Reading a book of your choice makes the activity a pleasure to look forward to.
- It helps to keep the book, audiobook app, or e-reader on you. Then, when you have some downtime, you can read instead of playing a smartphone game.
Audiobooks
Research found that audiobooks stimulate the brain differently but just as deeply as reading.
With print books, you need to provide the voice, imagine the tune and rhythm of speech, the intonation, stress of syllables, and so on. All this gets provided for you when listening to audio. With audiobooks, you're using different methods to decode and understand it. But it still deeply impacts your thoughts and feelings.
Apply your new habit
A reading habit can help you in numerous ways.
- Browsing through a book can calm you as part of the daily bedtime routine.
- It will also replace bad habits like looking at your phone before bed.
- Audiobooks can help you get fit. A study found those who listen to a great audiobook at the gym are more prone to exercise regularly.
- Reading can improve your focus and short-term memory.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
9
Key Ideas
A habit of compounding growth
Reading is a habit of compounding growth. When reading, you'll learn more, and you'll generate ideas and motivation for making other changes.
Reading books means you're getting more concentra...
Put the book down
The real cause of reading too few books is that you don't enjoy it enough.
Don't feel compelled to finish a book that has become boring, predictable or unhelpful. Start a new one. You can have many books through various states of completion. Some won't be finished, and that's okay. Reading less is worse than having a few go unfinished.
Build an online library
An obstacle to your reading habit is not having enough interesting books waiting to be read.
Create a list of potentially good books. If you have a Kindle or eReader, get samples of any book you might want to read — Source your wishlist from suggestions from other writers and authors. When someone recommends a book on a blog or tweet, add it to your wishlist.
6 more ideas
3
Key Ideas
Strategies speed readers use
- Skimming: quickly going through passages to find the main points.
- Meta guiding uses a pointer, such as your index finger or a pen, to guide your eyes along the lines...
Effectiveness of Speed Reading
Regardless of which reading method you use, the evidence points towards the fact that speed comes at the sacrifice of understanding.
Depending on what you’re reading, this might not necessarily be a bad thing: If you’re trying to get through a dry piece to capture a few key points or you are going through a short piece that’s easy to understand, speed reading strategies might make sense.
Make the most of what you read
- Choose different reading pieces for different occasions: articles and light reads can be reserved for short periods. Books that require less focus can be listened to in audio format etc.
- Incorporate reading into your daily habit: put a book on your bedside table.
- Share your reads with others, to help you to better understand and appreciate what you read.
- Reflect on your reading: take notes or check out films that are based on novels (to compare interpretations).
15
Key Ideas
Read to someone
One of the biggest obstacles to reading books we enjoy is that we think we should read books even if we don’t enjoy them—specifically, the idea that if we start a book, we must fi...
The To-Go Box Method
For a weight-loss hack, it goes like this: As soon as you order a meal at a restaurant, ask immediately that half of it be put in a to-go box once it’s ready and only the other half served to you. It’s basically a stricter version of portion control.
We can apply the same technique to get ourselves to read more.
Instead of 2 hours of Netflix each night, cutting it in half would still give you the satisfaction of watching Netflix in the evenings but also free up time to read as well.
Book Summaries
Preview the book in order to vet whether or not it’s worth investing your time in.
- Use book summaries. Find apps that give accurate and concise summaries of many of the most popular books out there and are constantly updating their library.
- Use podcast interviews with the author. Authors often go on the podcast circuit to promote their books.
12 more ideas