Claiming that you read 50 books in 12 months sounds like you are ready to conquer the world.
But don’t forget to mention that you are a vegan CrossFitter too (emoji)
My one question, is it actually helping you?
In other words, does reading a large number of books actually help to improve the quality of your life.
I don’t think so.
Think of it this way, how much can you really retain if you plow your way through a book every week?
Next to nothing.
Ok, sure there might be a few people who can actually read books like that, especially if they are fiction and entertainment books. (like my sister in law)
What I’ve started to do, is to read fewer books, and to spend a ton of time taking notes from these books.
This allows me to implement all of the main points into my life.
To me, the real goal of reading books is to better my life by understanding the philosophy of incredibly smart people.
Heck, I think the best books are the old ones. The passage of time has been able to truly set the old books aside from the rest.
They are filtered through everyone else who has read them and gotten the chance to shine.
Like “a man’s search for meaning” by Viktor Frankl. What a tremendous book to better understand humans and our outlook on life.
On the other side of things, my note-taking process is the best part about reading books.
My note-taking process goes like this:
I read books on my kindle, and then I highlight sections from the book that stand out to me.
After I have completed a book, I open up the good ol trusty google docs and start to organize my notes.
One huge advantage that the kindle has, is that I can copy each of my highlighted sections from Amazon’s website. This saves a ton of time when I am creating my book notes.
Then I continuously go back through my notes and reflect on the information inside. I use the lessons I learned from “Atomic Habits” to implement these new ideas into my life.
And here’s the best part, I use the memory tactics I learned in “Unlimited Memory” by Kevin Horsely to be able to remember the important parts of these books.