Top Ten Tips - Making Efficient Use Of Reading Time
By Tip Dude | Mar 22, 2008
Categories: Activities, Behavior, Books, Education, Friends, Hobbies, Public Transportation, Technology, Textbooks, Tips, Train, Transit, Travel
If you’re like Tip Dude, you’ll have this problem: you have a long list of interests, an even longer list of books you want to read, probably an even larger collection of books that you may or may not get around to reading, and no time to read anything. If you work out how many books you can actually stomach a year, and assume the same rate for the next 50-100 years, you will see that you probably couldn’t read everything you want to read in this lifetime. How’d you decide? And how do you make use of your reading time efficiently?
- Make A List Of Things You Want to Read - Yes, you own a lot of books, and don’t pretend you’re going to be able to read everything you own. So it makes sense to make a list of books you actually want to read. You don’t have to get rid of the books that didn’t make the list; some books are for reference, and other books are there because your reading interests change over time. Making a list allows you to make a first cut at determining which books you’re actually interested in.
- Refer To List Often - Tip Dude actually keeps the books he wants to read in a pile in his room. The titles are also in a notebook he carries around. That list reminds Tip Dude that he should be doing some reading. But what if the list is still too long?
- Read Relevant Materials First - At some point, you will have to prioritize. Some people have reading projects: for example, to read every single Harry Potter book. Others read factual material that are related to work or to a hobby. Usually it’s worth deciding whether work, hobby, or Harry Potter is more important and relevant to you, and read books related to that first. If you’re doing some work reading, start with the book that’s more immediately applicable (and perhaps at the more introductory level, unless you’re already an expert). Usually, more advanced or specialized books are better used as references, whereas the general introduction books have a broad range of information that’s likely to be immediately useful.
- Do Not Allow Others To Determine Your Reading List - One way to avoid reading things you don’t want to read is not to read things you don’t want to read. In certain cafes, the vendor promotes certain authors or genres. Just because it’s being promoted doesn’t mean you should read it. Determine your interests than seek out important books about that topic, instead of allowing advertising and endorsement to gobble up your precious reading time.
- Make Use Of Your Commute Time - Some people like to read newspapers during their commute. Unless you’re serious about needing to know the private lives of celebrities and government officials, you should instead bring a book to read. Newspapers are so general in their coverage that you’re more likely to spend time reading things you don’t care about if you read a newspaper. The book you bring will be one that’s on your reading list, and therefore by definition would be more interesting to you.
- Join A Book Club - If you join a group of people who have similar reading lists to you, it can motivate you to do more reading. Obviously, be sure to only join book clubs that read books that are already on your reading list!
- Farm Out Your Reading - Tip Dude finds that he absorbs information much quicker by talking with someone who knows than by reading. So what he sometimes does is to give a book to someone else to read and ask them about it. Obviously, this only works if you have friends who happen to like to read stuff that you’re also interested in.
- Read On The Toilet - Tip Dude used to always keep magazines that he wants to read in the toilet. Magazines are good because magazine articles tend to be shorter, and an entire article could be finished in the three to five minutes it takes you to sit on the toilet. Books are harder to read in the bathroom because Tip Dude inevitably ends up staying in there too long when he takes a book.
- Read At The Laundromat - Tip Dude often takes a book to the laundromat. Time spent sitting there is so boring (and you can’t really leave your clothes unattended lest some pervert tries to steal your underwear) that Tip Dude finds it a good way to force himself to read even books that might not be particularly interesting but must be read.
- Have the Book Read To You - Tip Dude hasn’t yet tried this technology, but, apparently, with e-books it is possible to have speech synthesis software read the book out loud to you. This sounds like a pretty good idea because then reading a book would be like listening to the radio, something mindless you can do while doing other things, instead of having to concentrate. Of course, particularly with fiction, many books-on-tape are available; but with the kind of thing Tip Dude likes to read, generally there aren’t audio books available. So, Tip Dude has to wait until he can get his hands on this e-book technology.
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