One of the common habits of most successful people is reading. Extraordinary people like Elon Musk, Theodore Roosevelt, Jeff Bezos etc spend a lot of their time reading. They know that if they want to get better results, they need to read and learn.
Reading is good but you need to understand that you need to read in order to gain a better perspective and knowledge to live a better and more successful life. If you really want to make a positive impact through reading, you need to learn how to get the most out of it.
How do you know that you get the most out of a book? You get the most out of a book when it significantly improves your life to the greatest possible extent. Because of that, an important goal of reading books is getting actionable ideas. To get the most out of the books, you should then put those actionable ideas into action.
Here are three ways to get the best out of a book when you pick it up to read :
- Have a Purpose: One of the most important things you need to do before you start reading is to identify the reason why you are reading the book. When you know the purpose of reading a book, you are giving an instruction to your mind on what to look out for as you read. It gives you a sense of mission and your mind will then act as a search engine and look for the solutions in the book as you read.
- Preview the Book: Before spending too much time on a book, you should know whether the book is worth reading. Preview the book by reading its cover, introduction, table of contents, and skimming through the chapters. Besides helping you decide whether a book is worth reading, previewing also helps you be familiar with the structure of the book. It helps you understand the big picture of the book so that whatever you read later can be put in the right context.
- Take Action Steps: Some books are not just about words, there are charts, exercises, and actionable steps laid out for you. Do them. Do the exercise as suggested by the author. Work on the actionable steps and execute on the plan from the book. You learn the most when you execute an idea from reading one book because it gives a positive impact on your life. There is no point in reading a lot of books and it has no remarkable impact on your life.
Do you find these tips helpful? Which of these tips resonates with you the most? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.