I was talking with two co-founders about what books we read and how did we read them. He mostly liked books about business and startups, some names that come out:
- Zero to One
- The Hard Things about The Hard Things
- Crossing the Chasm
- The Innovator’s Dilemma
She said that she enjoyed more books about detectives and mystery. She has also read all of the above, but she preferred more this kind of novels. Some books we mentioned:
- Agatha Christie
- Sherlock Holmes
- All the books from Dan Brown
I don't have a preference and actually like both: business and novels. I usually read them at the same time. And here is where the title comes in: “Multiple parallel continuous reading” is a way of reading that I have found really effective and that it actually benefits the way my brain absorbs knowledge.
[Click to tweet http://ctt.ec/u98qf]
So here I’m gonna go way over my expertise and state that I believe my brain works under two principles: first that it needs time to process thoughts to bring the best out of my memories and experiences, and second that to solve problems or process information is way better if you have a set of different experiences and not everything related to the same topic.
Read
The first principles means that when I'm reading a business book that has deep knowledge on a new paradigm (eg: The Innovator’s Dilemma) my brain need to take time to process the information and that reading all the book at once will overload it without giving it the time to process all the information.
The second principle is based in that your brain picks up from your subconscious different experiences and knowledge that you have been acquiring throughout your life and that they are necessary and useful to the better understanding of the concepts you are reading.
So, when reading a book, you may want actually to choose to read two at the same time. One of them would be a book related to business that you will read at a pace of 3 chapters a week, and the other one would be a novel or a book about art that you will pick once a week and read a couple of chapters. This will give the brain enough time to process the information from the business book while picking up also knowledge from your subconscious. You can see the brain needed time when you are showering and a random thought strikes your mind with a solutions or problem that you have been working on maybe some weeks ago. Your minds needs time to process and make the best use of all your previous acquired knowledge.
Why do I read a novel or art book while reading the business book? To feed my brain with knowledge that is not directly related to business. This way I force my brain to absorb some of this information and apply it to the thoughts that are being process at that moment.
“Multiple parallel continuous reading” is what I just came up as a name, due that this explanation is way too long and now I can just point to this blog. Hope you find it interested and if not, please go read a novel or an art book ☺
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The photos are as random as my thoughts (and grammar).
