"Now, I read the chapters that interest me based on the summaries.
Note: Book summaries don't include examples and experiences, so I read the relevant chapters to learn the topic in depth."
I relate to both of these a lot.
I often am reading many books at a given time based on what might be interesting to me from what's going on in my life.
For example, if I feel like I need to share feedback with someone and don't know how, I might refer back or read a bit of Radical Candor.
I make slight modifications depending on the situation. It's helpful I think to read it with a purpose in mind or a few use cases, that way you can make more connections to your real-world experience
I love the approaches you have mentioned here! It speaks a lot about the need to constantly grow and be better in all aspects and I really appreciate that! Truly inspiring!
I used to struggle with not moving on to another book without completing the one I had at hand, and now I take my time, focus on the learnings of the chapters and applying them. This helped me focus on various aspects on my life that I wanted to improve.
I had never read designing data intensive applications until after I built up my distributed systems expertise. I started with the book summary and realized what different chapters cover. I know most of those topics from a practical pov so it just showed me what I should / shouldn’t read.
Thanks for sharing. I often see myself with the feeling "I need to finish this one first" and it becomes an unpleasant experience. Your text will help me a lot.
I would complement this with knowing when to read fast and when to read slowly. You must be able to do both to properly absorb the knowledge in the books without wasting time.
Love the methods. I can relate to the sad part, I also only started capturing notes around a year and a half ago :)
The dislike to stopping books in the middle is also familiar... Now, if I catch myself not wanting to return to a specific books for a few days in a row, it's a clear sign for me to drop it.
To try out books, I usually use samples from kindle, it can give you a pretty good understating of whether you’ll like it or not, and less psychological necessity to finish a book you bought.
Regarding summaries - personally I felt that summaries just don't stick. I can learn the same things, but when reading a summary, or an article someone else wrote about the book, I rarely apply the lessons. I feel that the emotional attachtment of reading the book and the complete lessons are important for me.
Yea, agreed that the summaries don't have the depth. So, I only use it as a litmus test to read. Also I don't remember the summaries. Like you said, I remember the books because they explains things with different scenarios and examples. So it feels like a movie at that time.
I really like the idea of reading summaries first. I've read books, and I've read summaries, but never one and then the other. Surprised I never thought to vet books that way, usually it was only through reviews.
One question, you never read books other then work related like fiction/non-fiction(real-life stories)/history/biography. Do you only read self help books. Reason I asked is I have too many books to read but some other work comes in , or upskilling, I end up reading the books which I have already read.
> The sad part is, I only started doing this a year ago, so I don't have those for the older books
I really felt this one. I think it happened to all of us. I started taking notes in Word documents. More than notes, they were a summary like if I had to present a document at school.
Now I'm happy I take notes on what is useful to me, correlate to personal experience and I'm fine to leave information out.
Still struggling to stop reading a book. I have the hope the book will get better, but I guess it's just the sunk cost of time/money that makes me continue reading.
Very inspiring, thanks for sharing. I wanted to share that Kim Scott has a podcast on Radical Candor. It is a mind blowing podcast.
I have started journaling too, it definitely helps a lot!
"Now, I read the chapters that interest me based on the summaries.
Note: Book summaries don't include examples and experiences, so I read the relevant chapters to learn the topic in depth."
I relate to both of these a lot.
I often am reading many books at a given time based on what might be interesting to me from what's going on in my life.
For example, if I feel like I need to share feedback with someone and don't know how, I might refer back or read a bit of Radical Candor.
I make slight modifications depending on the situation. It's helpful I think to read it with a purpose in mind or a few use cases, that way you can make more connections to your real-world experience
Glad it resonated.
Reading when there is a similar situation a good way to apply the knowledge! That also has a better retention and a story to tell later.
Nice feedback 👌
My method to exploring books with limited time and a toddler at home is to use audiobooks.
Also thanks for the book suggestions, I'll add some of them to my reading list.
Yea I do that too but I still need to have focused time listening to it. Find that time is hard too.
For me, passive listening is ok for fiction and not where I need to learn stuff.
NK wondering, is there any other sources for audible books? One book a month on audible is pretty limiting.
If you have Spotify Premium, they have free audiobooks now too
Those are some really solid book recommendations. Adding those to my reading list!
I love the approaches you have mentioned here! It speaks a lot about the need to constantly grow and be better in all aspects and I really appreciate that! Truly inspiring!
I used to struggle with not moving on to another book without completing the one I had at hand, and now I take my time, focus on the learnings of the chapters and applying them. This helped me focus on various aspects on my life that I wanted to improve.
“I used to have the bad habit of reading books cover to cover” well that makes me feel much better about not finishing 80% of books I try to read 😃
Awesome approach to optimizing reading! I'm curious to know what's your approach to reading technical books? Is it similar?
Depends on the book. But I do the same!
I had never read designing data intensive applications until after I built up my distributed systems expertise. I started with the book summary and realized what different chapters cover. I know most of those topics from a practical pov so it just showed me what I should / shouldn’t read.
Thanks for sharing. I often see myself with the feeling "I need to finish this one first" and it becomes an unpleasant experience. Your text will help me a lot.
Thanks for sharing! Really thoughtful recommendations.
I'm curious if you're using any automation to sync your notes to Notion and if there is any template that you could share with us?
I use Readwise to sync my notes and then pull what was more interesting in my notes.
I would complement this with knowing when to read fast and when to read slowly. You must be able to do both to properly absorb the knowledge in the books without wasting time.
Thanks for sharing. I will check the first one: never heard of it :)
Great read! I face a lot of the same pain points with reading books, I’ll definitely give some of the tips a try
Love the methods. I can relate to the sad part, I also only started capturing notes around a year and a half ago :)
The dislike to stopping books in the middle is also familiar... Now, if I catch myself not wanting to return to a specific books for a few days in a row, it's a clear sign for me to drop it.
To try out books, I usually use samples from kindle, it can give you a pretty good understating of whether you’ll like it or not, and less psychological necessity to finish a book you bought.
Regarding summaries - personally I felt that summaries just don't stick. I can learn the same things, but when reading a summary, or an article someone else wrote about the book, I rarely apply the lessons. I feel that the emotional attachtment of reading the book and the complete lessons are important for me.
Thank you!
Yea, agreed that the summaries don't have the depth. So, I only use it as a litmus test to read. Also I don't remember the summaries. Like you said, I remember the books because they explains things with different scenarios and examples. So it feels like a movie at that time.
I really like the idea of reading summaries first. I've read books, and I've read summaries, but never one and then the other. Surprised I never thought to vet books that way, usually it was only through reviews.
Where do you read your book summaries?
Thank you! I almost considered not writing this article as it felt so obvious to me. I am glad I published it.
For summaries I use
1. Blinkist (has 15 min summaries)
2. Just plain old google the book name + summary.
3. Youtube videos on book summaries
I have that same hesitation of writing things that seem obvious or said by others. Trying to ignore it while I get started here on Substack. 🙂
Blinkist is great! I need to use it more.
One question, you never read books other then work related like fiction/non-fiction(real-life stories)/history/biography. Do you only read self help books. Reason I asked is I have too many books to read but some other work comes in , or upskilling, I end up reading the books which I have already read.
I did more of that before my kid was born (about 2 years ago). Now, I have almost no time.
Of course, I don't follow these steps for those kind of books :)
The last few books I read were Mistborn series, Way of kings, project hail mary and recently recursion.
When I read self help books, my goal is to learn the concept and not "read the book". So, I take all kinds of shortcuts else it is hard to find time.
Nice article, Raviraj.
> The sad part is, I only started doing this a year ago, so I don't have those for the older books
I really felt this one. I think it happened to all of us. I started taking notes in Word documents. More than notes, they were a summary like if I had to present a document at school.
Now I'm happy I take notes on what is useful to me, correlate to personal experience and I'm fine to leave information out.
Still struggling to stop reading a book. I have the hope the book will get better, but I guess it's just the sunk cost of time/money that makes me continue reading.