You want to get ahead in the world, so you make lists of books to read: inspirational books, management books, biographies, business books, and more. If you follow the suggestions in Read Everyday and Grow Rich, you’ll soon have many books and magazines you want to read. An overwhelming number of books and magazines. How can you eliminate reading overwhelm?
Read Summaries
One way to eliminate reading overwhelm is to read summaries of books instead of the books themselves. A summary will give you a good idea of the book’s central premise and any process steps outlined in the book. That should be sufficient for you to know whether it is applicable to your situation or not. If it is, you can then read the entire book, with all of its stories and examples. You will also be able to better learn from the book by having an overview in mind.
If you do not have a professionally prepared summary, such as those from Blinkist or GetAbstract, you can search for one online. Sometimes, the authors themselves will summarize their book in a video or podcast. If you already have a copy of the book, and do not want to pay additional money for a summary, you can self-summarize. Read the first chapter. Read the first and last paragraphs of each remaining chapter, until the final chapter. Then, read the final chapter.
Speed Listen
If you listen to books and magazines instead of reading them, you are able to consume books and magazines at the gym or during your commute. This alone gives you more time for listening. However, there is something you can do to further increase the amount of material you listen to in a given time frame. Most audiobooks (including magazines) have a speed adjustment. If you set the speed to 1.5x, the increase will barely be noticeable. Once it is easy to understand at a given speed, nudge the speed up by another .5x. The fastest speed is 3x. At that speed, you’ll be able to listen to 3 times as many books in the same amount of time.
Other Ways to Eliminate Reading Overwhelm
Other ways to eliminate reading overwhelm involve reducing the amount that you read. For example, rather than following links willy-nilly in articles, save the linked article for reading later. The next day, look over the articles you saved, and see if any of them still seem like things you should read. If they merely sparked an idle curiosity at the time, that should be gone. You can discard the article unread.
If you are reading technical information, or job-related information, make a list prior to your reading of what questions you want answered. Look through the table of contents or index to determine the most likely place in the book to answer those questions. Then go directly to that part of the book, and stop reading when your question is answered.
