How To Actually Take Action on Every Book That You Read
Reading is a complete waste of time, until and unless you have a system in place that will allow you to take action on the information that you get from the books.
Here’s How I do it and a complete system that will help you improve your life through Reading.
STEP 1: Reading Session
Make your reading session as enjoyable, relaxing and peaceful as possible so that you actually look forward to it. So, for me: I grab a cup of coffee and go to the terrace and sit under the sun in the early morning and soak some sun while reading my book.
To be honest, I look forward to my reading session everyday because I have been reading for a few years and I can literally tell that it is the 2nd most productive thing I do through out the day.
Reading first thing in the morning is the best thing you can do because your brain is like a completely blank slate and will absorb all the lessons and insights you get during reading.
STEP 2: Take Notes
Don’t forget to keep a notebook besides you to take notes on the lessons and insights you get. It will be useful to us up ahead in the article. But don’t just copy quotes from the book. Read a few paragraphs and ask yourself “How You Can Actually Use This Information in Your Life”. Think of actual life scenarios where you can actually use this information in your life.
For example, You read in “How To Win Friends and Influence People” that you need to remember the names of people because it’s the sweetest sound for them.
So, If you think about it. You can actually start using the other person’s name in the conversation more. Previously you might not even be aware of this. But now you consciously use this information actively with the other person.
STEP 3: Create a Action Taking System
Go to Notion and create 2 pages named:
- Daily Reading Objective
Daily Reading Objective is actually the most important part of this system and I think that without this section all of the books you’re going to read is actually going to be useless.
Everyday write 4–5 things as today’s learning objective. These are the actionable insights you got from the 2nd STEP while actively taking notes and thinking about how you can use it.
Now, Copy these 4–5 objectives from your noting to a small notepad. Yes, do the hard work of actually writing it down on a physical notepad. Make it in a to-do list style and consider that by the end of this day. You have to actually use this information.
Taking this small step and actually writing it down will make sure that you have the Daily Learning Objective in front of you through the day as you go through your tasks.
- Weekly Insights
Weekly insight is actually a set of bullet points that you need to write down every Sunday about all the things you tried this week and write about what happened when you actually applied them.
You need to do this so that you can return back someday and actually look at the things that worked for you that you might have forgotten and add them back into your Daily Learning Objective.
STEP 4: Re-Reading
Re-Reading is the single activity that has 10X returns than the time you invest in it. I read a quote by Naval Ravikant that goes something like this, “Read the Best 100 Books Over and Over Again.”
The thing is it doesn’t matter how many books you have gone through How many books have gone you through is what matters.
Reading a book and understanding it is a completely different thing and that is what re-reading is all about. Most of the books will actually click and change your life the second time you read it.
So, That’s it. That’s the process, I use to actually use the information I get from books to change my life slowly and steadily. And you can copy that for free.
