In What Way Can a Reading Challenge Work for You?
How to let a reading challenge work for you? What the heck is she talking about? Give me a few minutes, and hopefully I’ll win you over. There are many reading challenges out there. And a few of them are very good ones. You may be overwhelmed because of too many choices. Or you may think that you cannot participate because you simply do not have time to read books. Each of us, myself included, should allocate resources – time and money to professional development. And reading books, the right books, is one way to develop professionally. I created the Read the World Extreme Reading Challenge. And I am participating in it as well and it’s different from other reading challenges.
What occurred to me a few months ago, is that participants in my reading challenge, and some of the other reading challenges, can use them to achieve some of their career goals. An important aspect of the Extreme Reading Challenge is to visit all the continents, reading books by authors from a country on each continent. I include this in my reading challenge to help participants develop cultural awareness. People may think why bother? My response is that we are living in a global environment, therefore it’s important to understand different cultures. There is so much violence in the read, and if people were more culturally aware we would not have so many of the problems we have today.
What Are You Trying to Accomplish in Your Career?
Another aspect of the reading challenge is to read books to elevate your career. This is something worth thinking about. Where would you like to take your career. If you own a business, you have a career. If you work for someone, you have a career. If you have an idea of the next stop in your career, you can plan for it. There are lots of good books out there, and you can find the right ones to read, if you take the time to do so. When I started the Read the World Extreme Reading Challenge, my goal was to learn about virality. Therefore, I read several books on the topic. Since then, I’ve become clearer on the pockets on knowledge I want to acquire. I want to learn more about ideas – how to recognize them. I want to learn what makes an idea great. The other areas I’m interested in are learning and memory, and how to read faster while increasing reading comprehension. Although I planned the books I wanted to read during the extreme reading challenge, I will spend more focused time the next time around because I have more clarity around what I want to do.
How to Let a Reading Challenge Work for You: Follow These Steps
- Conduct a learning needs assessments.
- What do you need to accomplish in the next six to twelve months to prepare you for the next level in your career?
- What new knowledge do you have to acquire? What skills gap do you have to fill?
- What are the best books to read?
- Invest in yourself – buy the books.
- Decide what order you are going to read the books. You can do this based on the elements of the reading challenge you are participating in.
- Decide how you are going to take notes. (I personally use the Livescribe Echo Smartpen)
- Research says that taking notes by hand is best.
- While you are reading each book, take detailed notes. Highlight information that’s important to you.
- Teach the information to another person.
- Apply your newfound knowledge.
Livescribe 8GB Echo Smartpen Pro Edition (APX-00018)
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Let a Reading Challenge Work for You: Join the Read the World Extreme Reading Challenge
Is this something you think you can manage. In another blog post, I will write about how to conduct a learning assessment. Consider joining the Read the World Extreme Reading Challenge to make it work for you.
Participate in the Read the World Facebook Group! Please take the conversation to my Facebook page.
