Reading books – you are doing it wrong

You are reading books in an incorrect way, and here is why.

You have been told to do it incorrectly

It all started in a primary school. The very first place where you have been told to read books the wrong way. One by one. Do you recall your literature course? I bet its main concept was similar to the list below:

- pick a title
- read
- discuss
- write the essay
- repeat

This way you have learned that reading books is a repetitive process. You have learned to read books cover to cover before you start reading another one. This is plain wrong.

You are approaching topic from a single point of view

Instead of apporaching the topic from different angles, you are focusing on one aspect only. If you are thinking about learning something, pick as many books as you can (and as many as you can afford). Don’t be afraid of dropping a book in the middle of the read. If you find particular title really boring, porely written, don’t be afraid to stop reading it. It’s not a shame to toss pulp books into the bin.

You read one book at a time and you risk being hit by readers block

If you were taught to read books cover to cover, you risk being blocked. Once you get stuck in a middle of a book, you won’t read plenty of other tittles that are waiting in the queue. There are different factors that may affect this state:

- you don't have time                 - it doesn't block you from reading other books as 
                                        you don't have time anyways

- the book is boring                  - some other, more interesting, books are on the way; 
                                        try not miss the opportunity to read them, throw 
                                        current one into the bin

- you have lost interest in the topic - you are wasting chances for trying out other, potentially 
                                        more interesting topics

Put the boring book on the shelf, and try to focus at something else.

You don’t read multiple books at the same time

So, you have this long boring passage in the book, but you have to go through it to get to the end of the story as it is quite intriguing. Your reading speed drops and you end up with another evening spent on wandering around in your thoughts instead of reading. Instead of being sadistic to yourself, close the book, pick another one, give yourself a little bit of rest.

You waste too much time on irrelevant chapters

Not all books are masterpieces. They might be interesting, catchy, yet still it’s extremely difficult to find a book that will let you dive in at the beginning and leave its world at the end – with this characteristic exclamation:

– Wow, this was really something!

Have you faced really boring chapter? Just skim it. Don’t let the author of extremely boring, irrelevant text to steal your time. After all, it’s your time. The author already wasted his own on writing porely structurd passages.

You don’t read books as if they were scientific papers

Don’t be afraid to jump over paragraphs. Simply skip irrelevant ones as long as you can follow the plot. If you start new paragraph and you have this awkward feeling of not quite following the track, take one step back. This way, you can reduce the size of the book by half. Yes, I know, this way you can miss all these essential pearls hidden in the text, all these quotes that are worth noting down. Who cares? You probably already have soo many of them on the list you can’t even digest each and every one.

You don’t read to your kids

This is a great opportunity to catch up with things you have missed in the past. There is no better way to broaden your library and be up to date with new titles. Remember, young authors will base on what they have read. If you don’t want to get stuck with classics, read the stuff your kids are reading.

You don’t follow the rule: “Just read it!”

If you don’t like to read, but want to – just do it. Start with something short. There is no such thing as measuring quality of the book by its size. There are lots of short books that are worth of your time. Once you get into the flow, you can try something heavier. Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by huge masterpiece that will consume a month of your time to read it.