How to Get the Most Out of Self-Development Reading

[MartinP]

Hi!

I just read this good article about how to get the most out of self-development reading:

The Simple Dollar » Fifteen Tactics for Maximizing Your Investment in Reading for Personal Growth

My own personal strategy (because I get bored easily) is to read a few pages a day from 4 different but related books.

For example, i was doing some reading about copywriting, and I had 3 books about copy writing and one about "influence". it seemed to make the reading more enjoyable and varied.

Does anyone have any other ideas about how to maximise self-development reading?

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by MartinP

Does anyone have any other ideas about how to maximise self-development reading?

My biggest improvements came when I stopped reading and focused on doing. I think it can be easy for some to fall into the trap of "I just need to read a few more self-help books..." Eventually one realizes that they all basically say the same thing with different words.

[MagicalRealist]

Originally Posted by MartinP

Does anyone have any other ideas about how to maximise self-development reading?

I agree with Daffy Duck as far as reading PD/self-help books goes--taking action and actually doing what the books suggest is far more effective than reading another PD book.

That said, most PD/self help books don't need to be read from cover to cover. That's because they contain a lot of material you've already encountered if you've read very many PD/self-help books at all, as well as a lot of "filler" to pad out a 1-5 page idea into a full book.

Learning how to skim a book--to get the essential information from it without reading the whole thing, page-by-page, word-for-word--will save you a lot of time. Depending on the book, I can usually get everything I need out of it in 3-15 minutes (rather than spending the entire afternoon reading a 300-page book from cover-to-cover).

And most PD and self-help books make this easy. If they don't give most of the meat away in the Introduction and Table of Contents, it can often be found in lists of bullet points throughout the book, or at the end of each chapter when the author wraps up the main ideas they've just discussed. Flipping through the book and reading subchapter headings until you find the meaty bits works. Each book being different, some are harder to skim than others, but some are just ridiculously easy.

ETA: I forgot! My personal favorite way of dealing with self-help/PD/LoA literature is to find it in audiobook form and have it on in the background while I'm doing other things. I'll listen to the same one maybe two or three times in a row (sometimes more). If I was commuting to a job, I'd use that time to listen to audiobooks.

[dannielo]

I think 15 minutes of reading something inspiring in the morning is great for motivation.

Then it's better to focus on doing.

[RobbieInspired]

I like to read a book, and try and get at least ONE good idea from it. When I read knowing that I have to get one good idea that I can use, then I seem to get more out of the book.