I used to read books but never retain information. Here’s what I changed.
As I’ve grown older, my reading habits have changed. While I grew up reading fiction and adventure stories, I now find myself reading non-fiction and self-development books.
While the type of books that I’ve read might have changed, my reading style hadn’t. I’d finish one book, decide whether I’d enjoyed it or not and move on to the next one.
That worked fine with fiction books, but I soon found that reading in this way was a big waste of time when it came to reading non-fiction books. After all, if I hadn’t taken the time to retain and consider the information that I had been provided, I wasn’t able to take action on any of it to improve my life.
That felt like it defeated the whole purpose of reading a self-development book.
Therefore, a few years back I made some changes to the way that I read non-fiction. Today, when I read a book, I follow four steps:
1. Read digitally
There are lots of pros and cons to doing your reading on a digital device when compared to reading a “real book.”
I love having books around the place — I think they brighten up any room — but there’s no doubting that, when you do a lot of reading, it’s easier to collect notes and…
