How I Read Books

When I read books I use a style of reading that I have adopted from my uncle but it depends on why I am reading.  In general, though, my strategy is to highlight, highlight, highlight, and then highlight some more.

For me there are three main types of reading:

1. Educational reading. If I am reading for an assignment, I highlight.

2. Enrichment reading. If I am reading for my personal knowledge, I highlight.

3. Pleasure reading. If I am reading a story for pleasure, I don’t highlight.

Highlighting for me isn’t as simple of a process as you might think. The first step, of course, is to physically highlight in the books I read. The second step is to type up every phrase I highlighted into a document on my computer.  The third step (if necessary) is to condense down the highlights, by going through the word document and only picking out the best of the best. These quotes get put into a final word document.

What exactly am I doing and why? 

The idea behind the highlighting and typing system is repetition. When you highlight something you need to go back and verify that the thing is indeed something you want to highlight and then you have to physically highlight it. What is even more important though is the typing process at the end. Going back a the end of each chapter or at the end of the book to type everything up is what truly solidifies the information in my mind. Not only does the act of typing solidify the information, but then I have a handy document from which to quickly browse through for the best quotes from a book or to refresh myself on the content of that book. The system truly is great even though it is time-consuming.

I am warning you, this system is not for everyone. Some people just don’t learn by typing things up, and others don’t have the time to dedicate to reading, yet alone highlighting and typing.  If they read a book at all its a great occasion to be celebrated. Reading has always been a big part of my life since childhood so while I may not always have time to read as much as I want, I want to do it right when I can.

This brings me to my final word of concern. If you do decide reader to take up this system be warned. You need to follow through in order for it to work. Its a careful system of checks and balances. The act of highlighting is easy and many people highlight all over the place. I am judicious with my highlights because I know that everything I highlight will need to be typed up. If I don’t think something is important enough to type up by hand then It clearly isn’t worth my time to highlight it. Make what you highlight special and important information and that information will stick with you.

If on the other hand, you highlight willy-nilly and then don’t type it up you lose the repetition. If you don’t highlight enough you have missed out on other important information.

And that’s how I read. Try out the system if you want and then let me know how it works for you!