If you are a voracious reader or you are someone who’s actively working on forming reading habits, I am certain that you would have come across an ad of some book summary service like Instaread, Mentorbox, Blinkist etc. If you are in India, you might also know the app by Amrut Deshmukh called Booklet which again has summarised version of the books that he has read.
Now the idea behind these book summary apps is that instead of reading an entire book, one can simply digest its main ideas, in 10-15 minutes. These apps primarily cater to the nonfiction books, especially the self-help books category. And by the same premise, they sell further by painting a vivid picture of one person being able to digest hundreds of books.
I am sure that they would be having a lot of paid subscribers who have found it as an interesting concept and thus signed up for it. I understand their premise – why spend hours into reading a book entirely when you can digest some key ideas from a book summary app in 15 mins & then read 10 more books in half the total time spent.
For those who don’t really wish to invest in their reading habits, then these book summary apps are good substitute. Some amount of reading is thousand times better than no amount of reading at all.
But if you are someone who’s actively working to form long lasting reading habits, then you will be better off by giving these apps a skip.
Reading self-help books is like shopping at a supermarket. When you are in a supermarket you don’t pick every item that’s there. You pick what you need the most, what suits you the most.
Your point of view of reading that book will definitely be different to the person who had made a summary on the book summary app.
What if their interpretation overlooks a portion of the book that could have been important, or even life altering for you?
When you read and invest your time into these self-help books, you’re not just reading for the sake of it. You’re reading to apply. And thus the approach to read the book in small portions and applying it, each day. You will thus pick the best elements out of that self-help book, ones that you found were most applicable.
Instead of trying to read too many books and applying too little from them, pick ones that are most applicable to your current life and future self.
The mindset should be that the book must be deserving enough to be read by you. This will serve as a handy filter into bringing down the shortlisted books to 5-6.
Read them, a little bit each day. Apply them, a little bit each day. And summarize them for yourself each weekend. Repeat the process with the next book and the book after & before you know it, you would have already become what the book promised you to.
If you still wish to use a book summary app, then choose Blinkist. It has a “free daily pick” which has one book summary available to all its users – both paid and unpaid. If a book appeals to you, put it in your wishlist and if sometime later it makes the cut, then the book summary app would have served its purpose.
Today marks the completion of the 7th day of daily reading. Well done for sticking to your routines in the 1st week. By now, you have read articles ranging across the genres of Self-help, Fact, Travel, Environment and about Ideas.
I am certain that you would be having two questions in your mind –
a. How do I remember the new words I am reading in each of the articles.
b. How do I increase my reading speed?
Let’s address the former first.
Thanks (but no thanks) to our education system, the way we approach reading is quite orthodox and academic. We all are used to making a dash and reaching out for a dictionary whenever we would encounter a difficult word while reading something. In our childhood days, it would be a physical one whereas today, it’s digital – either on an app or a google search.
The issue with this approach today is that it breaks the state of flow. This word flow has been popularized by renowned happiness researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. If you just tried to enunciate his name & struggled to do so, well then welcome to the club. 🙂
In Csikszentmihalyi’s words, flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (1990).
Each time that we are reading the daily article, we are immersed in the content, trying to picture what the author is trying to convey. And right then, for every unknown word we encounter, we end up breaking our state of flow to make that dash for the dictionary. It’s quite like facing a speed breaker when you are on an expressway – jam the brakes!
Imagine what would happen to that flow when there would be around 10-15 words in each article. Forget about the state of flow, completing the article would itself become a challenge.
At the risk of being judged, let me tell you that I am not asking you to overlook unknown words altogether. The second-order benefit of reading is the enhancement in every reader’s vocabulary, which must not be overlooked.
All I am asking you is to do this – Every time you come across a word you don’t know while reading the article, ignore it. So what if you couldn’t understand the word, you will still understand the entire sentence. And in the rare chance that you couldn’t understand what the author has tried to convey in the sentence, you will still understand the paragraph overall. And if you didn’t understand the paragraph – well then that’s the failure of the author, not yours.
After you have completed reading the article and marking your n.Done‘s in the group, then come back to the article, find all those words that you didn’t know about and write them all down into an article journal (1). Later in the night, before you doze off, try to find the meaning through an app like Wordweb (been using it for 8 years now) and write them alongside. This could, in the long run, become part of a shutdown ritual (2) of its own and by large extent also serve to reinforce the article that you read, earlier in the day.
By following this as a regular practice, you will be reading more immersively as you would have allowed the state of flow to prevail. And believe you me, due to the state of flow, you will understand and remember the article even more. As a trickle-down effect, the total time taken to complete reading the article would have decreased considerably, if not drastically.
Talking about increasing the reading speed – well let’s practice deliberately to attain a state of flow while reading first, isn’t it 🙂
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1 - More on Article Journal in the Sunday Group Hangout on 12th July.
2 - Tuesday Tip #2 - Shutdown Ritual
I’m a big fan of this wonderful book “Tiny Habits” by Dr. BJ Fogg
Dr. Fogg is the founder of behaviour design lab at Stanford. In his debut book, he talks about the importance of anchors. Anchors are the driving forces that lead to the formation of a new habit.
Even while suggesting, he has mentioned 15 routines that one can create in the morning. How many did he suggest in the day? 5. And in the evening? 9.
There are more morning anchors than those in the day and in the evening, combined.
Well, it can be argued that the author was giving some examples so he might have added more routines in the morning or could have worked harder to write an equivalent number of routines for the day/evening.
But that’s not the case. Certainly, there’s something more at play here than it meets the eye.
Each one of us wants to be successful. The metrics to define success will be different for each person but it goes without saying that all of us have an innate desire to be successful.
But an ugly truth of our modern-day society is that only a few will ever achieve their true potential to realise their dreams…
For those who really want to be successful, it will only take a relentless pursuit of their goals & deliberate practice of their systems to get there.
For that journey to be successful, you will need on a heck lot of inspiration to remain on your path. One of the popular sources of inspiration is to read/ listen/ watch interviews of successful people.
If you were to do that, you will see one common pattern emerge – that these successful people mastered their morning routines.
Our morning routines hold the game-changing potential to make us soar in our life and the absence of which breaks us down, one fall after another.
But hey! I am not talking about the 5 AM club here. That sounds like a fancy thing to do. I am often shocked as to how people pay over the odds to be a “5 AM” person but very few succeed at it.
I am talking about building our Morning Routines that’s not defined by some 4/5/6 AM clubs 🙂
One of the most popular speaker out there, Brian Tracy has said in his book, “Eat the Frog” (No, not literally!), that the frog is the most challenging assignment of your day which has to be the first thing that one does on that very day.
While he has stated it in terms of Time management, there’s one small detail that was probably overlooked.
The key here lies in ENERGY MANAGEMENT.
All our life, we have been hardwired by our parents, teachers, successful people to manage time. Nobody has ever talked about managing our energies and it makes me wonder – WHY?!
Just search on Amazon for “Time Management” and you will come across 70000+ search results. Search “Energy Management” and you will come across 20000+ titles – all of which talk about Energy as a subject of science – solar, wind, hydro, and fuel conservation. Yikes!
Hardly anyone talks/writes/speaks about Personal Energy Management. I will.
Successful people also have yet another common trait — “They achieved greatness by doing what others weren’t.”
Everyone is trying to manage TIME. I want you to manage ENERGY.
As Robert Frost once wrote – “Two roads diverged in the wood, and I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference”. That is exactly what I want you to do in terms of walking the path of Personal Energy Management.
As an L1 ReadAR of mine, you arebuilding a routine to read each day via the daily articles over a variety of topics. With every passing day, you are not only adding to the knowledge pool; taking action by applying what you read but also beginning to experience the subtle benefits of reading each day.
When you reach L2, you will be building on these routines to create that habit of reading books, the smart & sustainable way along with other fellow readers.
By the time you end your L2 journey, you will have automated your routines with the deep habit of reading every day in your life. At the same time, you will be applying the learnings from each book and subtly transform your personal & professional life.
By reading consistently each day, we are pushing ourselves beyond the comfort zone to learn something new, learn different perspectives from other ReadARs for the same article & learn about ourselves too.
But for all of this magic to happen, we need to deliberately work on building & safeguarding our routines.
Because if we don’t end up creating our routines, soon we might start looking at reading each day as a task & before you realise it, an enjoyable knowledge gaining activity would be replaced with a unbearable job-like task which makes you gasp & sigh! Thus negating the impact of the transformational impact of habitually consistent reading could have had in your life… 🙁
Let’s take a step back here and look at things from a different perspective..
Imagine this: It’s 8 AM in the morning. You’ve just woken up after good 7 hours of sleep. The entire day lies ahead of you.
What would you do? A. Open social media apps like Facebook/Instagram/Twitter and see what’s happening in the world. B. Open Netflix/Hotstar/Amazon Prime and watch the next episode of a much-talked-about series/movie. C. Work on your Habits/ Learn something new.
Chances are that you are likely to choose option C.
Now Imagine this: It’s 8 PM. You’ve had a long day at work, nearly 10 hours if not more. Your manager yet again undermined you and gave you even more work to do. As the house maid was on holiday, you have tired yourself by doing the household chores.
If you’re in a relationship, your love interest wants to talk. If you’re married, your partner wants to spend time with you. If you’re parent and you have kids – well god give you strength my friend – in the course of the day, you helped them with their school & homework & now they want to spend more time with you.
What would you do? A. Open social media apps like Facebook/Instagram/Twitter and see what happened in the world today. B. Open Netflix/Hotstar/Amazon Prime and unwind with the next episode of a much-talked-about series/movie with the family. C. Work on your Habits/ Learn something new.
It’s very likely that the last thing on your mind would be to choose option C.
Wait, what? You still have a good few hours before you fall asleep. You still have the desire to learn. What is it that changed?
E.N.E.R.G.Y
You have spent all the gas that was left in the tank. Your brain no longer has any fuel to learn something new. You can’t do something today so you carry-it over to the next day. And the day after. And the day after the day after.
This is how the mental burden of unfinished work keeps piling up in our life and makes us feel miserable. And this is also how a natural love for reading, gravitates to become a “difficult unfinished task” and a new article or a new reading portion each day, makes you Sigh!
What can you do about it?
Each of the articles that I share or the reading portion that I give is designed to take roughly 1% of your daily time ~15 mins.
Each day that you wake up, tell yourself that I will read the article as the first thing in the morning for that 1% of the time. Later in the day, set yourself another 1% of the time to make your daily 3 line article summary and write down any difficult words into the same journal.
This practice will not only enhance retention but also load up your vocabulary tank with the fuel of rich new words. If in case you couldn’t read in the morning, this could also serve as a natural backup slot.
Once you are able to create a morning reading routine, then you can bring forth new inclusions into your morning routines such as including a fitness routine, learning a digital course, or writing something down, or any other routine that makes you, eat that frog! (still metaphorical!)
Yet not motivated enough?
Just ask yourself the following each morning – Do I want to Learn? (Yes you do because you answered the first question with option C.) Do I have the Energy? (Yes you will because you just had a good night of sleep & you feel refreshed.)
Since I am a learner & I have the energy as well; then the 1st activity of my day should be something that makes me learn and will take just 1% of my time & in return make me 1% better each day.
Yes I can. And Yes I will.
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, could not have made the power of 1% any more obvious.
Now go ahead and start reading. In the morning, each day, beginning from today. Don’t put it off till tomorrow. Because tomorrow never comes…
100% proceeds from the “Read for a Cause Reading Marathon” will be donated to Corona Virus Relief Fund (the moment they are announced) & to NGOs supporting the education of underprivileged kids.
Anyone from the country, across all age groups can join this digital reading marathon.
Here’s what we will be doing as part of the Reading Marathon. (Articles will span across a variety of genres & shall be about POSITIVE vibes only)
These perfectly chosen articles will each span a reading duration of 5 – 10 mins
Feel free to share this further with your friends and family.
For more details/queries, ping on WhatsApp at +91 – 90968 17279
Are you tired of the Fearmongering Whatsapp Forwards & News channels peddling Fear & Paranoia about COVID-19 all around you? Perhaps before you read any further, you need to switch them all OFF. And please do the same for your parents/grandparents.
In this era of widespread video consumption, reading about something this serious has taken a backseat. And that’s not the good thing since it has allowed “disinformation” to go viral.
And precisely why it has become hard to discern the actual impact, especially since social media is mixing facts with fiction. This is a dangerous cocktail as a result of which information in the form of articles, research, commentary, and videos that come from experts – is getting lost in translation.
Talking about experts, I am not talking about arm-chair analysts who have an opinion about everything in this universe. These experts are scientists, immunologists, viral disease researchers; ones who have dedicated their entire careers for something like this. And for that matter, I am not expert either (except when it comes to reading & helping others rediscover their love for reading)
Therefore I have decided to compile this list of BRILLIANT go-to articles across the world that have got all the essential information for you to be “Informed” without being driven into a state of Panic. I believe that, if you read through the smart stuff, you will come to appropriate, fact-based conclusions about whether you would prefer to take basic measures & keep your calm OR become paranoid.
If you are into stats; then look no further than these realtime dashboards being maintained by the John Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE)
This article has simply gone viral with more than 28 million views in over a week! An absolute go-to primer on the entire subject with smashingly good data visualisations.
This brilliant concept has become the “go-to” phrase in the fight against COVID-19. If you haven’t adopted social distancing yet, I hope this article makes you think about it long enough for you to implement it by yourselves instead of waiting for the government/company to impose it on you.
If by any remote chance, you were being puzzled why ‘everyone’s cancelling everything’; this article will help you understand why. It’s an extension to the idea of social-distancing mooted in the article above. Make sure you read that one first before this one.
The world is panic-stricken & for rightful reasons. India has so far done a lot in sageguarding itself. However many of the citizens are are still defiant about the threat & ramifications of such pandemics. This article is one that’s surely going to help you understand why we really to need to up the ante.
And if you are still being overtly skeptical as to why its much better idea to over-react now than when its too late; well then let this post by the WEF (World Economic Forum) enlighten you. Also Nassim Nicholas Taleb – the author of Black Swan – has a peach of a quote – “If you have to panic, panic early”
Wanna know what happens when disinformation outlasts information. Read no further than this brilliant analytical article. P.S – Start reading from “The Implication of More Information” section as otherwise this article will be too technical for a majority of readers.
This is fast turning out to be my reference guide in order to deal with the “sounds easy but turns out to be insanely difficult” task of working remotely. If you have had WFH imposed on you by your organisation, or if you are ahead of the curve and on self-imposed WFH; please go through this brilliant article.
This is from one of favorite technical know-how websites. Some rare mentions worth trying out. Remember – Humankind will come out fine post this coronavirus frenzy – and along with yet another wave of disruption!
Well by no means that this list is exhaustive but as and when I come across something more brilliant, I will keep appending into this list further.
If you believe that this was a worthy compilation, feel free to share it with your near & dear ones.
Don’t forget – 1. Share “information” ASAP; much before disinformation creeps into the inbox of your loved ones. 2. Stay Calm & Be Informed rather than be panic-stricken 3. Maintain social distance; & wash your hands leisurely, as much as you can.
