Most people agree that reading is very beneficial and lament the fact that they don't have time to read more. Here are five simple tips to help you fit more reading into your busy schedule. Keep a book with you. Keeping a book with you gives you a productive way to fill in those little 10- to 20-minute pockets of time where you are waiting on someone or something. Not every book is good to read in short bursts, so choose something that works well with the time spans to which you plan to commit. Stop reading something if you don't like it. Just because you started a book doesn't mean you have to finish it--no matter how many awards it has won. I started reading The Sound and the Fury … [Read more...] about Reading More
reading
Your Intelligence – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
We looked previously at some ways to appear smarter and look more intelligent. In this post I want to talk about ways to actually become smarter. A portion of your intelligence appears to be fixed. Research seems to indicate that there is little you can do to drastically increase your IQ. However, IQ is only one component of functional intelligence. Your knowledge, experience and training have a very profound effect on your ability to solve real-world problems. So even if you can't directly increase your IQ, you can increase your ability and speed to solve problems, which functionally accomplishes nearly the same thing. We are going to look at three areas as the foundation for … [Read more...] about Your Intelligence – Reading, Writing & Arithmetic
Offline Reading
As more and more content becomes available on the internet it is easy to shift our reading online. There are some benefits to this. It is easy to get timely information on breaking events quickly. The downside is that you can spend a good deal of time reading things with little value or worse. Your educational reading can degrade into a few hours of mindless surfing the web. Sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, and Reddit supply a constant stream of interesting content that often is little more than a waste of time. I'm not saying that you can't get anything valuable off of the web. However, if most of your reading is done online the chances of it turning into a waste of time are high … [Read more...] about Offline Reading
Taking the Time to Read
There are few people who wouldn't benefit from spending a little more time each day reading a good book. If you want to keep yourself at maximum creative capacity, you have to make sure you are taking in new ideas and thoughts. If you aren't continually feeding your mind, you'll eventually find your creative reserves starting to run dry. Continually producing output without taking any input is a good way to burn out. Here are eight tips that I've found help me in my personal reading habits: Read books. There is a lot of material available on blogs and other internet sites, but make sure you are taking time to read actual published books. The quality of published materials … [Read more...] about Taking the Time to Read
Do You Read Enough?
Imagine you are interviewing someone for a job and one of the questions you are going to ask them is "How much time do you spend reading and what do you read?" Now imagine the answer you get back exactly describes your own reading habits. What would your opinion be of the person you are interviewing based solely on that answer? In other words, are you impressed with your own reading habits? Most people aren't. With the Internet, the average person reads a much wider range of content with much less depth than 20 years ago. And while there are some definite advantages to knowing a little about a lot of things, much of the content adds very little value to people's lives. Making … [Read more...] about Do You Read Enough?
Getting the Most Out of Magazines
I subscribe to a number of magazines and newspapers. Here are some of the strategies I use to get the most out of them while keeping the time commitment to a reasonable level. Skim - I'm not looking to fully read every article. Much of the time, the first few paragraphs and a quick glance over any charts will tell me what I need to know. TOC - The table of contents is another useful item for skimming. I usually prefer to skim the actual articles as well, but the TOC gives you a good feel for what might be interesting. Cut - I have a handy little paper cutter that slides down the page right next to the bound edge. I cut out any articles that look like they might be worth more … [Read more...] about Getting the Most Out of Magazines
Personal Development: Reading Habits
Most people are not suffering from a lack of things to read. For many people the difficulty is deciding what not to read as there are so many choices available. To get some ideas how people prioritize and choose reading materials, we asked a number of bloggers the following question: What are your reading habits and how do you choose reading material when there are so many options? Here are their answers. (4005) I come across a website through some means or another, and if I like it, it goes in my feed reader. If it hasn't got a feed, I'll probably never come back. But the bulk of my reading is books, and my choices are usually informed by recommendations from friends or … [Read more...] about Personal Development: Reading Habits
Books I’m Reading
I just finished Never Eat Alone (a book on how to network with people) and would highly recommend it. I'm also half way through Work the System by Sam Carpenter (a book in the style of The 4 Hour Work Week) and just starting Brain Rules by John Medina. (These two books were given to me in hopes of a review, but they look pretty good so far.) Another book I recently read and recommend is Physics of the Impossible. … [Read more...] about Books I’m Reading
Destroying Magazines
I find that magazines are much more useful once you recognize that it is ok to tear pages out of them. Rip out the articles that you think look interesting and take them with you to read while waiting. Once you finish reading an article you can throw it away. An article that you read and toss is worth far more than one sitting on a shelf that you never have time to read. … [Read more...] about Destroying Magazines
Stop Reading on the Internet
A few weeks ago, my eyes started bothering me when reading things on the computer. I think they were just tired, because they seem fine now. However I did make one small change that has proved useful. I've tried to stop reading news on the Internet. I subscribed to the Wall Street Journal and it comes every day with more news than I care to read. If I catch myself starting to go to a news site on the internet, I stop and pick up the newspaper. I've found that this reduces the amount of time I spend reading news and the quality of what I'm reading is usually higher. … [Read more...] about Stop Reading on the Internet