Capturing Eureka Thoughts
or How I read non-fiction books ?
I spend most of my free time which is pretty much all day — reading books, mostly non-fiction. About a week ago, I started questioning my reading habits. One question that intrigued me the most was “Am I making the most of my reading time and how can I amplify it?”
Before I answer the question, let us rewind a little bit…
I got into reading by borrowing books from friends. I didn’t care to buy my own copy. It felt like too much money and I didn’t think it was a wise investment. So I would borrow them and read.
My purpose of reading was to learn and remember what I gained out of the book. Since it was not my copy, I had to maintain a scribbling pad where I took notes. This gave me a chance to read multiple times and it helped me internalize.
But this was too much work for me. I wanted to rush through books. I felt that I was spending too much time on a single book. I despised the idea of taking notes. It bored me. Therefore, I decided to buy books and build my own library.
Now I didn’t had to take notes. I just underlined and highlighted important excerpts. It made my work less intensive and I was happy about it.
My happiness didn’t last for too long though. I realized that these highlighted notes can easily be misconstrued or misinterpreted. They can be easily taken out of context. A prolific author does a great job of providing multiple perspectives on a subject. If I as a reader cherry-pick important lines, then I am messing with the context. Not so cool.
I have not entirely discarded the idea of taking notes or highlighting. But, I tend to not draw too many conclusions out of it and be aware that I have inherent biases and assumptions.
Now let me answer the question I mentioned in the beginning — Am I making the most of my reading time and how can I amplify it?
Few days ago, I stumbled upon an article on how to read by Robert Heaton. I urge you to read it too. One idea from the article, caught my attention. A reading session is incomplete without writing the summary at the end. This practice has helped me immensely while writing book reviews. I need not recollect everything in order. I summarize one chapter at a time and so it helps me stay focused.
The way I follow this process now is: I read and write simultaneously. The reason I do this is — we get so many amazing thoughts between the paragraphs. I like to call such thoughts as “Eureka thoughts.” They are extremely volatile. You can easily lose hold of them in no time. So I make sure to put it on paper immediately.
Honestly, this process seems very natural and liberating.
Further reading:
Do let me know what works for you in the comment section. I will be glad to hear you. Thanks for reading!
