Tips for Personal Growth Through Reading

🚀 Elevate Your Mind in a Post-Literate World 🌐 In our fast-paced, digital age, it's easy to get lost in the endless stream of short, snappy content. But there's a whole world of depth and understanding waiting for those who choose to dive deeper. Here's how to enrich your intellectual life in a post-literate society: 📚 Explore Varied Genres: Don't just stick to one type of reading material. Mix it up with history, science, philosophy, and classic literature. Fiction can be a powerful tool to boost empathy and expose you to different perspectives. 🤔 Deep Reading: Ever read a paragraph and then draw a blank? Combat this by actively engaging with the text. Take meaningful notes, summarize chapters, and even debate with the author's ideas in your mind. 🎯 Set Reading Goals: Challenge the shallowness of quick content by setting reading goals. Remember, it's not just about quantity; it's about what you take away from each book. 📖 Join Book Clubs: Enhance your understanding and enjoyment by discussing books in a group. It's a great way to discover new genres and deepen your insights. 🎧 Utilize Multiple Formats: Whether it's a hardcover book, an audiobook, or an e-book, use the format that best suits your learning style. Sometimes, combining formats can lead to a richer understanding. 💭 Reflect on Your Reading: Like Stephen King, give yourself time to reflect on a book after finishing it. Consider its relevance to current events and its impact on your perspectives. 🌟 Apply Lessons in Real Life: Look for practical insights in your reading that you can apply in your personal or professional life. Even a single new idea can make a significant difference. 🗣️ Teach Others: Share what you've learned with others. Teaching reinforces your own understanding and improves your communication skills. 🤝 Engage in Debate: Use critical analysis and debate to deepen your understanding of a book. Question the author's arguments and compare different viewpoints. By embracing these strategies, you'll not only enhance your memory and focus but also sharpen your analytical skills. Dive into the world of deep reading and watch as your intellectual landscape transforms! 🌟📈 Do good work! 🌍💡

Productivity expert Ali Abdaal has read 1,000+ books. Here are 17 tips from him on how to become a better reader: 1) Don’t just pick up the classics because “that’s what clever people do”. Find the books written on topics that fascinate you and by those people you admire most. 2) Just as we can fall in love with exercise by finding the sports we enjoy, we can fall in love with reading by finding the books we enjoy. 3) If you begin reading a book and you aren’t enjoying it, then there’s no obligation to continue. Just stop. We don’t need to finish a book just because we started it. 4) The truth is most books won’t deserve our attention. So find the books you love and discard the rest. 5) Make it as easy as possible to pick up a book and read it. 6) There’s literally no excuse for not reading. 7) Reading is the mentor without the cost, the pain, and the discomfort. 8) The number one influence in my life wouldn’t be people at all. It would be books. 9) By reading lots of books I’ve managed to accumulate decades worth of knowledge and experience from the world’s most incredible minds, with minimal personal effort. 10) The more we read and the better our reading processes are, the more our ideas, beliefs, and opinions begin to develop at an ever-increasing rate. 11) When reading to understand and analyse, we’re going to want to actually carry the book around with us. Even a Kindle would suffice. 12) Throughout the day you’ll find numerous opportunities to spend 5 or 10 minutes reading. So keep a book nearby. You don’t know when the next great reading opportunity will arise. 13) There’s nothing inherently wrong with reading to entertain ourselves. 14) If there’s one piece of advice I’d recommend here, it would be listening to audiobooks – particularly when reading to entertain rather than to understand. Personally, I’ve found audiobooks to be pretty awesome when working out or driving in my car, as this allows me to incorporate ‘reading’ into my life where I’d previously have been “too busy”. 15) Sometimes, a book might be really good, but we’ve just encountered it at the wrong time. That’s okay. We don’t have to read it if we don’t find it interesting right now. We can always come back to it later. 16) Reading to understand requires the greatest cognitive effort. It forces us to challenge our preconceptions, critically analyse the status quo, and directly confront ideas that we may not be immediately comfortable with. This is hard. It can be uncomfortable. But it’s the only way for us to level-up our thinking and personal growth. 17) Only speed read books that you don’t want to understand. Why is that? When reading at speed we’re not going to have the time to think about what is being said or develop the insights necessary for true comprehension. As Woody Allen humorously observed: “I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”

On the book that shaped my thinking the most (or learning from unexpected vectors). Every so often someone will ask me what book affected my career the most. Some think it will be Zuboff. Others Turkle. Really, it’s by someone none of them know. It’s The Box by Marc Levineon. It details the story behind the evolution of container shipping and the illustrated how the broader sociotechnical system shaped that evolution. Why was it important? It showed how conflict, the evolution of technology, and standards changed the global economy. What did I learn? That drivers of global change often rests at the intersection of business disciplines and unexpected shocks. That logistics, supply chain, information systems and policy were necessary to explain why a war changed the global economy. I left the book with a deeper understanding of why and how studying supply chain was so important. So what to do? First, keep an eye on books. They offer a more in-depth understanding - even if not academic - of important phenomenon. I have caught myself using illustrations from the Box again and again. Second, read out of discipline. Rigorous treatments of a phenomenon can offer you a new way of thinking. They help you connect the dots. I have found looking at an issue holistically is helped by reading out of discipline - and the ways that other authors treat an issue. Third, look for interesting phenomenon. If you are not interested, you will not finish the book. I have found being interested also translates to more learning. Fourth, pay attention to the writing. Authors of amazing books have learned to write in interesting ways. Small turns of phrase distinguish good writers from great writers. Finally, schedule time to read. I don’t get much personal time. When I have it, I spend it with my nose in a book. I have found learning to invest my time in books rests my mind and makes me think holistically. So take time for books - be they out of discipline or from practice - you will find the discipline of reading a book and making time for it - makes you a better scholar. Best of luck! #academiclife #supplychainmanagement #informationsystems