Categories
Book Club ReadARs Reading

This is the End.

I write long posts.

This one is not.

This has not been an easy decision, but it’s a necessary one.

Only when I close this book of my life that I can move onto the next.

Immediate Next Steps —

I will leave the groups open for conversation till 31st August 2024.

I will close them down as we enter September.

Over the next 3 days, share your cherished memories

Appreciate the friends you connected, chatted & grew along with!

AND EVEN RANT if you are disappointed with my decision.

In one sentence – I couldn’t scale it.

The paid membership poll I asked served as the final litmus test.

The barrage of questions, objections & hesitation sealed its fate.

For some of you who polled Yes, I am Sorry.

For most of you who polled No, thank you.

My Call to Arms to the ReadARs

ReadARs who joined b/w 2019 to 2023 — The ReadARs Club 1.0 &
ReadARs who joined in 2024 — The ReadARs Club 2.0

You came here to build a Habit of Reading.

Now you are ready to fly away from the nest.

Go out there & be the ambassadors of Reading.

Keep applying all that you have learnt in this journey.

That’s all you need.

Thank You to each & every ReadAR —

You are the most important people on this planet.

You made the transitions happen.

It all started in 2019 as a mere 50 day Reading Challenge.

Then evolved into “The Reading Habits” cohort based course.

And nestled into “The ReadARs Club”

I’ve come across gems of ReadARs, who brought their unique skillsets to become such an asset for the whole community.

“People come for the course, but stay for the Community.”

You made me learn this lesson forever.

I can’t mention all wonderful ReadARs here as the list will go on.
(remember this isn’t a long post)

Over the rest of 2024, I will seek to have a 1:1 to thank them.

Special Thanks

None of this would have happened had it not been for my wife, Nikita Punjabi. (LI, YT)

I rebuilt my habit of Reading in 2016 & 2017 because of her.

It was because of her encouragement that the ReadARs was started.

She has had to bear with me as I tried, experimented, faltered.

She even decided to help me further, with Guided reads on Fiction books.

And doing so helped both of us see that the end was near.

Today, the end is here.

What lies next for me —

I don’t know what future unfolds.

But now is the time to rebuild.

In the immediate terms, I will read to improve my health and career.

Both have been on a slippery downward slope for the last two years.

In terms of Reading, I believe my journey has just begun.

There are many areas that I can get better — especially note-taking, writing book reviews & content curated from books.

I hope you will say the same about yourself.

I am certain our paths will cross again.

Let’s stay connected via —

1. LinkedIn

2. Youtube

My Instagram presence is questionable!
(3 Accounts yet no effing clue what to do.)

4. Facebook – Who knows if I start using it.

And I am one DM away on WhatsApp.

I will share my personal number in the groups — please save it.

I can’t guarantee that the professional number with which I’ve ran ReadARs, will exist cometh 2025.

Thank You for Reading all the way down.
AR

Categories
Audiobook How to ReadARs Reading

Audiobooks — What to do & What not to do — Part 1

Hey ReadARs

Here’s the first part of audiobooks, what to do and what not to do and everything here on a very Monday morning.

When to listen.

I usually listen to audiobooks when I’m doing something else.

When I say something else, I’m doing something like running, or working out, or when I’m driving a car, or when I’m in a cab, and it’s night time, so reading inside the cab is obviously not so possible.

I also listen to them when I’m also doing some household chore, or when I’m brewing my coffee. So I plug into audiobooks when I’m doing something else.

But not when I’m doing something very intensive, or you know, cognitively, my mind is required somewhere else. So if I’m running a program or coding it, no, no, not at all.

So when I’m doing something where my mind is not being utilized fully, okay, I listen to audiobooks.

Step 1 — “find your slot” to listen to audiobook.

That’s why you will see a lot of people listen to audiobooks when they are walking, or when they are driving, so passively listening. Remember this word, passively listening.

How long to listen to audiobooks at one stretch?

Actually, this is where a lot of people make a lot of mistakes. They go on a long stretch, their journey is one and a half hours long, and they will continue listening to the audiobook, not realizing somewhere around 20th to 30th minute mark, they would have actually stopped listening. And then they just let the book continue.

Even though we have two ears and one mouth, we have poor listeners. In fact, listening to audiobooks improves you as a listener, okay. That’s a very intangible, but very powerful benefit of audiobooks.

But your mind also has a cognitive limit, where it will stop really listening in. That sweet spot is between 20th to 30th minute mark. As you build that practice in, as you build your reps in, you’ll go from 20 to 30, okay. 20 is still a very sweet spot. Keep this 20 in mind as well.

What speed to listen?

Now, this is where again, there’s a lot of BS around, where what you should listen to 2x or 2.5x above, because you should quickly complete the book, there’s so many books out there. Yeah, they would have their own school of philosophy, I consider that as BS. I still believe 1.5x is the final point, okay. Obviously, to each their own.

The speed range, which I find very helpful is 0.85x to 1.25x.

I’ll explain to you when.

If I’m running, if the world around me is moving faster when I’m running, or when I’m driving, so the world around me is moving faster, okay. That’s when I bring the speed down to 0.85x. That’s when I slow down the audio book so that because the world around me is moving fast, I can grasp a little bit better.

When I’m at home brewing my coffee, or when I’m in a cabin, I can literally close my eyes and slow the world down for myself, I go to 1 or 1.25x.

You find your suitable listening speed. As I said, we are poor listeners, so don’t go over the top.

I barely use 1.5x in reserve scenarios where I’ve gone through the book already, maybe I’ve read it, I’ve already heard it, and I’m re-going through it, so that’s not the right word, but nevertheless. I’m going through it again, so that’s when I maybe, occasionally, I go to 1.5x.

Anything more than that, it won’t make sense. If you are at too high speed, all you will listen to it is Tape Recorder in Fast Forward Mode.

What not to do when listening to an audiobook?

  1. Avoid Audiobook while doing something very cognitive.
    I skip audiobooks when I am doing an intense activity where your mind has to be involved.
  2. So if you are driving a two-wheeler, I will tell you to avoid audiobooks. It should be strictly avoided anyways, but a lot of people still keep their earphones in. In a car, it’s relatively safer, but obviously in a car, don’t put your airpods on, okay. If you are in a car and listening, put it on the speaker, rather, so that you still have some sense left to drive, okay. Don’t fully smash your senses in.
  3. Avoid regression.

    See, audiobook is about exploring, it’s about soaking the information in. You are not going to retain everything out of it, okay. You are going to be like a sponge, which will retain what it wanted, and then everything else will drain off. This is also where the point of not going beyond 20-30 minutes comes into play. Your mind is only going to be able to soak some information.

    So avoid continuously keep going back 30 seconds or 60 seconds or back and forth. A small chapter will become huge if you do so. This is called regression. Avoid regression as much as you can.

    The only time I do this, okay, so there is also a caveat for everything in life. So if I’m running and the author has said something, wow, okay. Now because I’m running, my mind is still on the road and traffic around and stuff. So if the author has said something, wow, I would go back and do that 30 seconds back or 60 seconds back. I will set the settings to 60 seconds back. So if I just click a button while the audio book is playing, I can go 60 seconds back and listen to the entire portion of it. I do think 30 seconds is the best place because you don’t have to additionally listen. But in 60 seconds, it will give you a little bit of context. So I do regress sometimes, but it’s very, very rare. Only in a scenario when I’m doing something else and I missed. The rest of the time, go past. The audio book is about just soaking in.

Last but not the least, make a quick scribble of two minutes or three minutes after your listening session.

I’ll expand into it on how to retain better with the audio books in the part two of this video, which should come to you on a Tuesday morning, that is tomorrow.

After any listening session, just scribble what you heard in two or three quick minutes. Don’t try to make a whole summary essay out of it. But don’t try to ignore it either.

These two or three minutes, when combined with your 20 to 30 minutes of listening session, just are going to change the game for you. They’re not only going to make you a better listener, a better retainer of information, but it changes the way you look at audio books and reading and books, all sorts of knowledge and information as well.

So, yeah, this is what you have to do. This is the first quick video of do’s and don’ts of audio books. Part two of this will come tomorrow morning. So, watch it. That one will be a short one. I’m just setting this up for all of you.

P.S — Do the audible settings as well. Go to audible. If you’re on audible, go to settings. It’s on the top right corner, three lines. Click there, settings. Just go to the general and playback speed. That 30 second or 60 second thing, whichever you’re going to be more comfortable with. I’m comfortable with 60 seconds. The default setting, I think, is 30 seconds. If you’re fine with default, let it be. Don’t overdo.

That’s it for today. Thank you.
Let me know in the group if this video was helpful for you.
Ta-da!

Categories
Reading

Let’s Read Socially!

“Do Epic Shit”
&
“Get Epic Shit Done”

Reading Alone is Boring

Reading Socially is engaging, interactive & fun!

So how about we Read these two “Epic” books by the One & Only Ankur Warikoo.

Please note – You will have to buy these two books on your own.

You can buy both these books here

Categories
Book Club ReadARs Reading

Notion & ReadARs

It took me a while to adopt Notion.

Back in 2020, I had estimated that Notion will grow into something big.

But until 2022 arrived, I couldn’t move my arse out of the comfort zone of using basic note-making apps.

2022 was when I began using Notion.

In 2023, I am doubling my usage of Notion.

To share my knowledge with my beloved community of ReadARs, I am kickstarting a series of sessions on Notion.

Session 1 — 18th January at 9 PM IST
Session 2 — 19th January at 9 PM IST

Sign-up for these sessions here 👇

5 years from now, every big corporate organization will be using Notion.

Why not you get started way ahead of them
(& before you are forced to adopt it)

Categories
Book Club Reading

The ReadARs Club Elite

Time has arrived for all of us to chart out the next leg of the Growth Journey as members of The ReadARs Club

Introducing to all of you — The ReadARs Club Elite.

Here’s how Elite would be a game-changer for the ReadARs —

Mini-Cohorts

A topic specific cohort ranging between 2-4 weeks.

Great Readers Write — 4 Week Mini-Cohort designed to help Readers level-up their Reading Game via the power of Writing, coupled along with Accountability and Audience-driven metrics.

Atomic Learning — 4 Week Mini-Cohort designed to help you level-up your skillsets by learning every day through the Self-Paced Courses.

Habit Tracking 2.0 — Yes I was wrong to not continue further with the erstwhile Habit Tracking Group. I am resuming it with a pledge that I will keep making the entire process of Habit Tracking more effective every month.

Workshops

1-2 hour workshops spaced intermittently

Read — Better, Faster, Smarter

Continuous Learning Program to refresh & enhance your Reading skills. Total of 12 Workshops that lie in store for the ReadARs.

DG — Build your Digital Garden

Call it Digital Garden or call it Second Brain. 2023 is a year where I want all the ReadARs to compulsorily build one of their own. Even if it inefficient (and it will be); even if it is not beautiful (Great Gardens don’t get built overnight)

EATS — Manage Energy, Attention, Time & Smartphone Better.

Guest Events

Earlier this year, I called in Sathya & Jill Metcalfe to deliver their keynotes on Mind-Maps & Notion at the ReadARs Annual Summit

Well I am doubling-up on that.

I will be leveraging my connections & invite them as external speakers to deliver a keynote on topics that matter to each of us.

Oh yes! I intend to get Authors to join in & Elite members would get to be a part of it.

Get Paid!

Who here would hate to make some money to buy all the wonderful books from? I wouldn’t.

Get Paid to be an Alumni Guide

Get Paid to play official roles.

Get Paid as an Affiliate & get your friends/connections join into the Reading Habits Cohorts

Curious to know the Schedule of Mini-Cohorts, Workshops & Guest Events. Here you go 👇

Let’s address the Elephant in the Room — Pricing

Membership will be valid for one year effective from 01-01-2023 till 31-12-2023

I intend to open-up The ReadARs Club Elite for the world outside this year. Their pricing will be 2X the pricing tier of the ReadARs.

If you are game-on for being part of The ReadARs Club Elite, DM me on Whatsapp so that I could initiate the Onboarding Process for you.

If you don’t feel like paying for one year membership —

I will be moving you out of TRC and will be subsequently adding you to a low-noise channel (tentatively called The ReadARs Hub)

The purpose of this channel is so that you don’t lose touch with your identity as a Reader. This channel will also have Free GRPs occasionally.

We have only got 3 days left in this 2022.

Ample Time to make one decision for your 2023.

Whatever it is, Let me know.

Any queries – Ask me Directly or Ask me in the Group. But Ask 🙂