There are many benefits to reading.
But what I like the most: a good book that can give you a new way to explain your past experiences.
Every time you learn a new mental model or idea, it's as if the "APP" in your brain is being updated. Suddenly, you can run all the old data points through a new program.
You can learn new lessons from old times. As one saying goes, "Reading redefines the past." ”
Of course, this will only work if you internalize and remember the insights from the books you read. Knowledge is only "alive" if it is retained in the brain.
In other words, it's important not just to read more books, but to get more out of every book you read.
The problem is that many people now read a book and easily forget what they learned. Read books and articles in the same way as watching vibrato and watching short videos, and in the end, I can't remember anything.
So how to solve this problem? Here are 6 easy ways to share.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="92" > first, develop the habit of reading books every day</h1>
Do you remember what short videos you swiped yesterday? I'm sure you definitely don't remember!
Why? Because the short video is too short, after we finish watching it, the relevant content is too late to leave a mark on the brain, so we cross it over and look at the next one.
Do you think that by reading in this way, you will be able to remember what you have to learn?
But if you can develop the habit of reading books every day, especially the same book, even if you forget what you read yesterday, but because you continue to read this book today, then the content you see today may wake up what you saw yesterday.
This is one of the benefits of developing a reading habit. Otherwise, if you finish reading it today and not read it tomorrow, in the end, you just waste the time you read today, because you may not remember anything.
So, my advice is to find a book you like, a book that is related to your future and goals, and then keep reading it every day.
After reading it, even if you forget most of the contents of the book, some important information will still be preserved.
Of course, this is not enough.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="91" > second, select books that can be used immediately</h1>
One way to improve reading comprehension is to choose books that can be used immediately.
If you can put into action the knowledge you read, or the ideas that inspired you through books, you will be able to grasp them deeply.
Practice is a very effective form of learning.
Choose a book that you have "practicality" to your work and life so that you can give yourself a strong incentive to pay attention to and remember material.
For example, many of my readers want to learn eloquence and improve their expression ability, so with this goal to read relevant eloquence books, and then insist on exercising themselves through practice, they can naturally master knowledge and improve their ability.
This is particularly true for some important and unresolved matters.
For example, if you're starting a business, then you have a great incentive to learn everything about starting a business from a sales brochure. Similarly, people who work in biology may be able to read On the Origin of Species more carefully than those who read it randomly because it is directly related to their daily work.
Of course, not every book is a "practical guide" that can be applied immediately, and some intellectual or theoretical books make it difficult to have practical steps.
However, if you can combine this knowledge and theory with your own real life, it will be easier for you to understand the content.
After all, we are more likely to remember books related to our daily lives.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="93" > third, build a knowledge tree</h1>
Think of a book as a tree of knowledge in which some basic concepts form the backbone and the details form the branches.
You can "graft" your current books with other trees of knowledge by "linking branches" to extend your understanding of knowledge and improve your reading comprehension.
For example:
I read a book about speech and saw a concept of expression called the "Golden Three-Point Theory."
This concept suggests that when any topic is told, it is communicated in a way that is "one, two, three". Neither monotonous nor overly cumbersome.
And if you have learned the expression of the "pyramid principle" before, in fact, you can take the "golden three-point theory" as an extension of the "pyramid principle".
After all, the core of the pyramid principle is the conclusion first, the above system, the classification grouping, and the logical progression. And to do that, you can organize the language in one, two, and three ways.
For example, if your boss asks you to explain why your performance has declined this month, you can give three points, each of which is to say the conclusion first, and then slowly explain.
Connections like these can help you remember what you read by "hooking" new information to concepts and ideas you already understand.
As Charlie Munger puts it, "If you develop the habit of combining what you read with a basically proven point of view, you will gradually accumulate some wisdom." ”
When you read something that reminds you of another topic, or immediately triggers a connection or idea, don't let that idea come and go without reservation.
Write down what you learned and how it relates to other ideas. You will find that you will understand more and more.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="94" > fourth, write a short summary</h1>
Whenever I finish reading a chapter, I challenge myself to summarize the entire article in three sentences.
Some of the questions I consider when summarizing a book include:
What is the main idea?
What are the easier places to understand and which are more difficult to understand?
How would I introduce the book to a friend?
In many cases, I find that the amount of useful information I get from reading my single paragraph summaries and review notes is usually as much as when I read the entire book again.
If you don't know how to summarize what you've read effectively, consider using Feynman techniques.
The Feynman technique is a note-taking strategy that I've talked about in previous articles.
The process is simple: see what you see, repeat it in your own language, and then explain it to people who have never heard of it.
Of course, you don't necessarily have to really find someone to listen to your explanation, you can imagine a person coming out.
If you find yourself stuck, or you find yourself having a flaw in your understanding, check your notes or return the text and try again. Keep "talking to yourself" until you have a good grasp of the main idea and are confident in your explanation.
The so-called "integration" means that you can fully understand the various concepts and contents of the book. If you can explain concept A, but don't know much about concept B related to A, you haven't fully integrated it yet.
At this point, you need to revisit the book. In this way, your memory will be deep.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="90" > fifth, read related books in the same category</h1>
Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Italian philosopher, famously said to me: "Beware of people who write only one book." ”
The same goes for reading.
If you only read one book on a certain topic and use it as a basis for your beliefs about the entire category of life, how reasonable are those beliefs? How accurate and complete is your knowledge?
Please do not doubt that books written by some authors sometimes do "carry bootlegs" and may affect your judgment of certain areas.
One way to solve this problem is to read various books on the same topic.
For example, if you want to learn the concept of "herding", different books will give different descriptions.
In Psychology and Life, co-authored by Richard Grieg and Philip Zimbardo, the term "conformist" is described as a tendency of people to adopt the behaviors and opinions of members of other groups.
In David Myers' book Social Psychology, the description of "conformity" refers to the change in an individual's behavior or beliefs due to group pressure.
In Sandra Chercarelli and Nolan White's Best Primer on Psychology, the definition of this concept is described more bluntly: changing one's own behavior in order to cater to others.
By learning knowledge in this way of describing the same concept in different ways, your understanding of the subject will be deeper.
Moreover, digging from different perspectives and looking at the same problem through the eyes of different authors can also transcend the boundaries of their own experience.
This is the way to improve the depth of your thinking.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="76" > Sixth: Read it twice</h1>
Confucius has clouds: learning from the past. This is also the benefit of reading the book twice.
The philosopher Carl Popper also said: "Anything worth reading is worth reading not only twice, but also worth reading again and again." If a book is valuable, then you can always find new discoveries in it, discover things that you haven't noticed before, even if you read it many times. ”
When you read a book twice, you may find something you missed the first time, but more likely, the same content that inspires you to think differently.
For example, when I read "Dream of the Red Chamber" before, when I saw this verse "When the fake is true, it is true and false, and there is nowhere to do anything", I will think that this writing method is cool, and then used to ridicule the love of friends.
But now that I'm older, reading this verse again, I will be connected to my own life. Walking in this society, true and false can change at any time, and some things you care about seem to be within reach, but in fact, they will never belong to themselves.
I have a new understanding of this verse.
This is because depending on the different stages of our lives, the same sentences will combine our own experiences to come up with different ideas.
Of course, even if you don't get something new out of each reading, it's still worth revisiting a good book because ideas need to be repeated to be remembered.
Psychologist David Kane said: "When we only learn something once, we don't really learn it – at least not enough to change us." It may be temporarily inspiring, but it will soon be overwhelmed by the habits and conditions of previous decades. ”
After all, knowledge compounds over time.
While a book rarely changes your life, and even though it does wake up your perception and evaluation of certain things, the point is that reading makes us a little smarter every day.
What do you think?