Read 30 Books in 30 Days Like Francis Bacon
The new year is just days away. And it's a time when people make resolutions. One common resolution is to read more books. Your resolution may be to read more books in 2020. Do you have a plan to realize your goal of reading more? Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against you in sticking to your resolution. Unless, of course, you have a plan in place. Now as you're reading this article, you may start to feel anxious. A feeling of overwhelm starts to wrap itself around you.
Stop for a second, you don't have to feel anxious or overwhelmed. I can help you. I will teach you how to read more books. And I'm not talking about speed reading. What I have in mind are strategies that will allow to read more intelligently.
How to Read More Books in 2020 and Have Time for Fun
I'd like you to play a game with me. Please humor me. Think back to the last five books that you read, how many of them deserved being read cover-to-cover. Nearly none of them I'm guessing. If you've been reading this blog for a while now, I'm guessing you know what's coming. And you'd be right, it's the Francis Bacon quote.
“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few are to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.”
You have to approach each book you decide to read differently. Why? Because some books you'll only want to taste, others you'll want to swallow, and still others you'll want to chew and digest. The good news is that most books are meant to be tasted and swallowed. At least that's my opinion, anyway. So that means if you taste and swallow more books, you'll end up reading more books in 2020.
Tasting and Swallowing Books
Personally, I think the problem lies with your definition of what it means to read a book. Reading a book means that you understand what the author is trying to tell you. It doesn't mean reading from the front to the back of the book and everything in between.
Here's a little secret. Most publishers have word counts. So, for an author to get her book published, she has to honor that word count. Often what happens is that she needs to add extraneous information to fulfill the word count. As a professional woman, who has lots of responsibilities, why would you take the time to read all that extra stuff?
How can you read like Francis Bacon and master the art of tasting and swallowing books?
The first thing for you to do is to have a purpose for reading every book. In How to Read a Book
by Martimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, you have three reasons to read a book.
- Entertainment
- Information
- Understanding
However, the most successful people read primarily for information and understanding. I read for all three reasons. And I've discovered that I can learn from the books I read for entertainment. The second thing for you to do is to preview each book before you start to read. This allows to decide which book to taste, swallow, and chew and digested.
Read More Books in 2020: How to Decide to Taste, Swallow, Or Chew and Digest a Book
Above I mentioned that one of the ways to read more books is to preview them first. This allows you to decide which books to taste, swallow, or chew and digest. What does it mean to preview a book? In some cases you may hear the word inspect instead of preview. Here are some tips I have for you.
- View the Table of Contents.
- Place a check mark beside the sections that you need to read that align with your purpose.
- Read the Preface, Foreword, Introduction.
- Scan the Index to see what keywords and phrases the author thinks are important.
- Flip through the book to look at all charts and images. A picture is worth a thousand words.
After you've inspected the book, do you need to read the book? Or do you have everything you need from it. If you got what you needed, you've read the book. Read books to satisfy your purpose for reading. In the event that you placed a check mark beside any sections, read them now.
This is a more intelligent way of reading. Practice selective reading. Read only the section of books that furthers your goal for reading and furthers your understanding of a subject.
Reading More Books: Taking Your Reading to the Next Level
How do you define a book? Is a comic a book? How about a graphic novel? A collection of essays? Audio books? Now you're thinking about what a book is. In my opinion, comic book, graphic novel, collection of essays, audio book are books.
If you're not much of a reader, borrow a book from library that covers a topic you're passionate about. Everyone is passionate about something, what's your passion. Is there a difficult topic that you need to master, but have been procrastinating reading a book about it? Read a children's book instead since it will explain the subject in plain language. Or you could read a comic book about the topic.
Adding variety when it comes to the format of a book allows you to read more books. This also helps you to develop the habit of reading books regularly. And that's what you want to do in 2020. And when listening to an audio book, increase the speed of the recording. Narrators speak slowly. You can listen at a faster rate and still understand the information. Try listening at 1.50 times the speed. Up the speed to 2 times and see which speed you prefer. You'll read more books, I mean listen to more books.
You've Read More Books Now What?
You continue to do a task if you benefit from it. Reading is no different. If you find that reading more of the right books helps you at work and in your life, you'll do more of it. You're reading more books, now what? That's a good question and I'm glad that you asked. I want you to take your reading to a new level.
It goes without saying to take notes when you're reading a book. Record the important information in your notebook. Important information for you is any that satisfies your purpose for reading. Review your notes, then test your knowledge of the information. If you have problems recalling the information chances are you didn't learn it well enough. Review the relevant sections of the book.
Pick out the big ideas from the books you read. Combine the ideas from the books you read to elevate them to bigger ideas. Tie the idea to a human need. This year, I'm promoting that professionals read across multiple disciplines and practice intersection thinking. Elon Musk practices intersection thinking.
What is Intersection Thinking?
Every year, Rohit Bhargava publishes the book, Non-Obvious where he reveals the trends he curated. In the 2019 edition of his book, he wrote about intersection thinking. If you search for intersection thinking, chances are you won't find it. The closest concept is interdisciplinary thinking.
According to Rohit Bhargava, author of Non-Obvious 2019: How to Predict Trends and Win The Future
:
“Intersection thinking is a method for creating overlap between seemingly disconnected ideas in order to generate new ideas, directions, and strategies for powering your own success. It can create a crossover gamechanger. It allows you to think in a way your competitors aren’t.”
When you practice intersection thinking while reading across disciplines, magic happens at the intersection. I'm teaching you how to read more books in 2020. But I'm doing something that's even better, you're learning how to elevate you reading by reading across disciplines and experimenting with different book formats.
Understanding What You Read and Going Beyond That
I touched on this a bit already. What I want you to work towards, is to add your unique insights to what you're learning to create a new body of work. Turn your knowledge into digital products, an app, a course, or whatever. Therefore you'll be reading more books as well as creating something new.
If you need help to read more books in 2020, I invite you to join my Performance Accelerator Plan. Another way to go is to buy my Learning How to Learn Again program that will teach you about learning and memory, as well as how to read more intelligently.
Recap to Read More Books and Elevate Your Reading
- Have a purpose for reading every book.
- Preview every book before you read.
- Read books from multiple disciplines.
- Make note of the important information.
- Pick out the big ideas.
- Combine and elevate ideas from the books you read.
- Tie big ideas to a human need.
- Create something new.
For this most, I decided I wouldn't take the route that others took. I didn't want to advise you to always have a book with you, schedule reading time, and so on. That's good advice, but I wanted to elevate the conversation. The best way to read more books is to read more selectively. As well as being more discriminating about the time you spend on each book.
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