Here’s my secret on reading new books | #DailyBlink24
First of all, the cover of the books really impress me, but not enough to help me decide to buy the book. Creativity and design are key points I derive from the cover of the book. Because the cover of most of the books especially the bestsellers varies from time to time.
I hardly buy from shops or book fairs unless it’s a great deal. Great books come at a great price sometimes that doesn’t fit my monthly budget at this point of time. Infact most of the time, I get the same book from the street vendors at a much lower price since they are the used ones. It’s doesn't matter if the book is first hand or having good quality pages, what matters to me is the content in it. Or else I go for online stores since most of the books are not available at the vendors.
What inspires us to read?
Our ability to read mostly depends on focus and you can focus only when you are interested to learn something new.
According to Mark Manson, “Humans focus on things they enjoy. They also remember the things they enjoy. Therefore, the first and most obvious rule of reading and retaining more information is to be ruthless and only reading books you truly enjoy reading”.
That’s exactly the point. Remember the last time you completed the whole web series without even keeping track of time? Yes, it is because you were enjoying it. But reading books requires a ton of patience to stick to it, it is in fact quite different than watching a web series of course.
So whenever I’m picking a new book, I go through its contents section that interests me most of the time. Here are two things I do: I read something that I know about and I read something that I don’t know about.
You will often find that most of the non-fiction books have repetitions. It’s the same principle explaining by a different author from a different perspective. Choose the one who helps you to apply those principles in real life.
So, if the author has something that I already know, I will skip that section and look for something that I don’t know. No regrets. This way, it helps me choose books that are hard and has whole new insights to offer. Because it helps you think, it helps you exercise your thinking muscle. But do not overthink because we spend a lot of time inside our brain thinking and less time executing. We have enough of thinkers, now we need executors. Always remember:
Gaining expertise by putting your knowlegde into action will help you compound faster compared to the people who are simply gaining expertise by reading.
How do I pick new books?
Mostly, I choose a new book to read through recommendations and I’m always lookings for new books in the conversations, be it on any tweet, article, comment, podcast, or a video that I’m watching. It ensures that I’m driven to read that book.
How do I motivate myself to read once I lost focus from it?
We tend to lose focus on reading the book once we have it with us because humans are very good at acquisitions. The motivation to read the book tend to drop once you have the book with you. So here’s I do:
Plan A, I check reviews of the books, what the world is saying about it. I look for reviews on Instagram by using the hashtag of the book. Or plan B, I learn about the author, learn about his works on the internet and mostly on their social profiles. Honestly, I look for reasons to read that book again. Because it’s obvious to lose your why in the noise in this age of abundance.
At KiwisMedia, we are trying to build a culture of reading books by gifting books to each of the team members every month.
I’d love to know your reading strategy. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you find it helpful. I wish you patience and success in finding your why.
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Your Friend,
Riten
