Book Journaling and Meditation: How to Make Reading More Engaging?
In my last blog post, I talked about acquiring new habits during the quarantine period when we are staying at home. The two new habits I have recently picked up and planning to continue all throughout the upcoming summer are book journaling and meditation. I’ll explain how I found out about these habits in the following sections and how you can implement them in your personal schedule.
Book Journaling: How to Start
I found out about this habit when I was reading some books recently and then thought about how I can make my reading experience more engaging and helping to catalog the books I’ve read for the future. Despite the name of this term, you can also incorporate these elements for other forms of media as well, such as films, series or video games.
I did some searching and found about “book journals”, where you write about your own thoughts regarding specific books and also to review your reads if you wish. As the texts are personal, I think there is less pressure on making a perfect type of review on a website such as Goodreads, but you could work on some of your reviews you have found to be most interesting and then publish them.
It is up to you how to personalize the style of your book journal but here are some suggestions. First off, whether you are choosing to write on a paper notebook or on a computer, dedicate a few pages at the beginning for a list of books you have read. The columns you could include are start date of reading, finishing date, number of pages, and a one or two-sentence summary of the book.
Dividing the books you are going to read to sessions, such as a few chapters each can be helpful for making writing the journal retain consistency and make it easier to have it become a long-term habit. Each session can be a single page. Now for what to include for each of the pages depends on the type of the book. For novels, you could write questions or predictions on how the plot and characters are going to develop before the start of each session. Now for the first session, it can only be done based on the book cover and blurb alone, so it may be a bit more challenging. For nonfictional books, you can opt to utilize parts of the SQ3R studying method, namely in that you ask questions that you are expecting to learn from specific chapters of a book.
Once you have finished reading the chapters you have chosen for a session you can now answer the questions and affirm or refute your predictions you have written at the start based on your reading experience. If you cannot answer all of them, you can reformulate the questions you could not answer previously and add them for the beginning of the next session.
You can, of course, add other personal comments and thoughts you have while reading the book in addition to the questions and predictions. The aim is, after all, to make the reading experience more engaging and active, but at the same time, there should be no pressure to conform to a specific format, style, or “end goal” with your writing.
If you feel like picking up a new book and leave the one you are reading currently behind, then you can mark the book in your initial list as “did not finish” (DNF). If you feel like it, you can write about any particular reasons why you chose not to finish reading the book.
Reviewing
Alright, so now you have finished reading the book, great! You can then write a review about the experience of reading the book. Again, the style is personal, but I’ve been thinking of utilizing a 100 point system divided into 5 sections of 20 points each. It is essentially a 5-star system but more accurate in outlining the different areas where the book succeeds or is lacking. The 100 point range is utilized in many review sites, such as at Metacritic, but I wanted a system that highlights the areas where a type of media succeeds or is lacking at glance and can be easily compared to other works, particularly those of the same genre.
Initially, this idea did not come from books per se, but from video games. I’ve been thinking about making ratings in this style based on areas of Mechanics, Gameplay, Design, Graphics, and Entertainment Value. In short, Mechanics assesses the feel of controlling the different elements in the game, Gameplay assesses the core structure of how the game is played, Design incorporates characters, music and visual elements and how they mesh together, Graphics is based on style and optimization of rendered elements on the screen and Entertainment Value is the overall value for money and time invested.
For books and other types of media, new areas are needed. For novels, this could include Plot, Character Arcs, Worldbuilding, Language, and again, Entertainment Value. Nonfictional books again would require their own areas and can be further divided by the type of the book. They could focus on the clarity and presentation of the ideas within, for example.
You could even use this for textbooks you are studying! I presented a short lecture with a group on European Union law based on a chapter of a book, and afterward our professor asked us to evaluate whether the book helped or hindered our learning experience in comparison to other study materials. It can really pay off with regard to your own study methods if you are able to evaluate textbooks based on how it presents their subject matter.
With these suggestions, you could start to outline your own format for a book journal. I myself am looking forward to using a book journal to make the experience of reading more active.
Meditation: How to start
I have done meditation occasionally but I haven’t made it to stick as a habit. In my last post, I talked about the importance of limiting your screen time and having varying activities during breaks when studying, but now I’ve realized that it is useful to incorporate meditation into your schedule, even once a day as well. Many people report several kinds of benefits but for me, the most important factor is how refreshed you feel afterward, which helps to tackle tasks and problem-solving at a different angle than before.
There are a plethora of guides for meditation, after reading some for a while I thought that practice makes better and decided to just jump into it. So I put on my headphones, set a timer for 10 minutes on my phone, put on some ambient music, and sat down on the floor and closed my eyes.
Time for A Pit Stop
Really simple, right? But if you have been intensely focusing on a task before or have more upcoming you might at the beginning feel restless. You might think, “This is not productive!” or “What a waste of time!”. But think of meditation like a pit stop in an endurance race: although you stop and stay still, it is helpful for the long-term. So I sat still, and after some moments passed, I found myself only focusing on the melody of the ambient music I was listening to.
I got up after 9 minutes, almost until the end of the timer period but not quite. I planned for around 5 minutes which is the time I’ve done previously, and going well over my estimation of the passing of time was surprising. And that is also an interesting part of meditation, as you cannot perceive the passing of time like usual when able to check a clock, you are more focused on being in the present, rather than the counting down of an abstract concept called “time”.
And while clocks are useful for scheduling, if you are working on a larger project at home for example during an afternoon, there’s no need to focus on going anywhere particular. Meditation helps you get grounded on the present moment, and to give full attention to your current task.
After my meditation was over I noticed I was indeed feeling a bit more refreshed. While this is great, I think it is useful to make meditation a daily habit like a pit stop, and not just to take session when you feel like you are beginning to get severely stuck on a task.
Conclusion: Active Media Viewing and Pit Stops for Thinking
So there’s a brief introduction to these activities which can be formed into useful daily habits. Book journaling makes the viewing of books and other types of media a more active experience: rather than being a spectator you are more actively focused on the presentation of stories, themes, and concepts in works of media. Meditation sessions are like pit stops for your thinking in big creative tasks that can feel like an endurance race: standstills that are very helpful for long term-success in tasks you are performing.
Stay safe and have a nice summer — and remember to come back from the quarantine with the feeling that you have exceeded some of your past limitations and maybe formed a new helpful habit or two!
