Lessons from <The Power of Output>
I am constantly seeking to improve myself.
At the start of each year, I’ve always set new year resolutions to read X number of books. Besides books, I like to watch a lot of Ted Talk and documentaries. Thought that I would be growing as I was reading or watching. However, if you ask me to explain to you any book or talk that I’ve recently read or watched, probably I won’t give you a satisfying answer.
Why?
What I have always been doing is “input”. Reading, listening, watching, and constantly inputting information into my brain. The very important step I have missed is “output”.
In the book <The Power of Output: How to Change Learning to Outcome>, the author Shion Kabasawa defined “input” as putting the information inside your brain and “output” as processing the information inside your brain and presenting them to the world. The real factor contributing to personal growth is actually the amount of output.
The golden ratio between input and output should be 3: 7. It means that, whatever amount of time we spend on input, we need to double that time and spend on output.
Then how to output? I will share the 3 most useful ways of output that are very applicable to our life.
1. Talk
It’s the easiest way and the most common way of output. Just talking to your friend about what happened on the previous day is a good way to start output. To level up, you can add in your own thought or discoveries.
Fact + Thoughts/Opinions = Output Ability Level Up
For example, I recently watched <Everything Everywhere All at Once>, and the old me would start reading other people’s reviews once out of the cinema. Now I discuss the movie with my friends and will try to add my personal thoughts: I was deeply moved when Evelyn confronted her father. She has finally found her own identity and been able to accept her father’s differences.
2. Three Sentences
After reading a book or listening to a talk, as long as you can write down three main points or reflections, then it’s worth the time or money already. This idea is simple but very useful. Every time, I would be procrastinating as the thought of writing a book review is very scary. Now, I just need to write down 3 points. It’s so simple! This will not just help us to remember the main points of the book, but also motivate us to focus while reading.
Another way of writing these 3 sentences is:
Before + After (discoveries/learnings + to do)
For example, my 3 sentences for this book <The Power of Output>:
- Before: I could hardly remember what I have read.
- Discoveries/Learnings: Output is very important. There are different ways of output.
- To Do: I will output for every book I read and use the “3 sentences” method.
And since I already started writing, my resistance is overcome, I could continue to expand on the 3 sentences and eventually become an article you see right now.
3. Keeping a diary
Keeping a diary is not just helping us record our life, but also helps to improve our ability to output. It’s like the first point “Talk”, instead of speaking, we write down what happened in our life + our thoughts. In this way, we are able to continuously output even when we are not reading or watching videos.
So that’s are the 3 main ways of output. Lastly, I will share 3 interesting tips that can help us output more efficiently:
(i) Handwriting VS typing: handwriting is proven to help people learn better than typing as it is more cognitively complex. (Reference)
(ii) Asking ourselves questions: before reading a book or attending a lecture, ask ourselves what are some questions or objectives we have for this session. In this way, our brain will be activated to pay attention to these keywords and search for more useful information. This is called “selective attention”.
(iii) Inspirations: these usually appear when we are in the relaxed mode. Relaxed mode usually happens in these 4 scenarios: Bathroom, Bus, Bed, and Bar. So remember to give your brain a little break.
Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any other ways of output!
