How not to forget the books read

IN "Art to talk about books you have not read"The author, Pierre Bayard, in its classification of unread books adds to those whose contents we have forgotten. Because the process of forgetting in a moment may come to a point where our understanding of the book are representations of a man who, even in their hands did not hold it.

There is a logical question - then why do we read useful books, if not take out of it any knowledge? Or, to make the book something useful and applicable in life, should reconsider their attitude to reading and to change the process?

What do you do when you read a non-fiction book?

Places it in a prominent place, others to see what you're reading, and generally well done? Gives read other or returning to the library? Remove the electronic version? You are looking for something similar on the subject? Or simply send in the closet, never to return to it?

If this is about you, you lose the ability to turn to their advantage the new knowledge and forget most of the book.

Most of us read passively. We review the information, often pochityvaya between Twitter thing or replying to messages, and hope to be able to apply at least a grain of knowledge in life.

But reading this way, we simply move from one book to the other with a small stock of information and quickly forget everything you just learned.

What a waste of time! Acting correctly, you will be able to enjoy the non-fikshena actively learn and build for myself to not forget anything important of the books they read.

1. Search for books

If you read popular scientific and business literature, to learn something new or make something new (Meditate, to do fitness, increase sales, and so on), then the selection of books must be approached very, very carefully.

And best option in this case - to listen to the professionals, rather than buying in the near kiosk book by an unknown author.

Be sure to read the reviews on the web. Of course, the book - a matter of taste, so the evaluation can range from "great" to "disgusting". Therefore, pay attention only to the well-reasoned responses. Rating can also tell a lot about the book: if the majority puts it high praise, she at least deserves interest.

Ask for advice from those who, in your opinion, well versed in the area that you are interested in. People love to give advice. Therefore, this request will not refuse even unfamiliar people.

But in order to make the best list of books, you can do it even easier. If you want to learn how to write selling texts, search the web authors and copywriters who doing it professionally: lists of books constantly appearing in their blogs that they recommend to the reading. Look for common ground. One book may like, another said it was useless - but when different people are advised the same book, it is a good sign.

With a list of books ready to move on to the next step.

2. Read and take notes

Fiction, we tend to read for pleasure, for aesthetic pleasure. It requires a thoughtful, measured reading. Good art book you want to read from cover to cover. Non-fiction can be read quickly. We need to absorb the most useful information, so the scientific and popular literature can practice speed reading.

As you read, mark significant places and those that are desirable to remember. With e-books is quite simple - in every reader is a function of bookmarks. If you're from the old school and prefer paper books, for these purposes are ideal tear-off sheets for notes or bookmarks with taped edge.

The more you read and observe, the easier it is to separate the useful information from the water.

Most (good) books clearly seen the presentation logic, argumentation. You go start to determine where the entry where the intermediate and where the final conclusions and will be able to quickly understand what part can be skipped.

When finish reading a book, do not take immediately to get all my notes. Wait. Instead, continue to read books related to the topic just read (assuming that you want to delve into the study of the selected area; otherwise start reading any other book). And not to forget to go to read, start to lead a new list - a list of books from which to get the notes. This is perfect for any application notes - Google Keep or Evernote.

Why not to take notes at once? For two reasons.

At first, to lay down the information in your head, it will take time. In the long-term memory will have more information when will take place some time between the first and second impression. Wait a few days before you read important information.

Secondly, you do not spend it in vain and break continue reading. If you continue to read books on the topic, you will see what ideas are found everywhere, and which slip only once or twice. If you meet the specific idea of ​​only one author, take it with a little skepticism. But if any advice is found in virtually every book, most likely, it's worth it to him to record.

Take notes - it is also an effective way to determine which book is worth reading from beginning to end, and what you can simply flip through.

If you're reading, and in the process do not make any notes, this may indicate that the useful information in the book a little bit. In this rule there are exceptions: for example, if the book does not pile findings, but nevertheless it is remarkable. But if you read a book to learn and can not find it any more or less meaningful output, it can be a waste of time.

So you've read enough books, so we can move to the next item.

3. remove notes

Note: do not just organize notes and copy them. So you lose a lot of useful information.

Instead, skim through the whole book, briefly stopping at the point where you took notes. So you brush up on the context and be able to easily integrate disparate pieces of information, as well as pay attention to things, the importance of which you did not understand before.

Why? Because now you have formed a higher level of understanding of the book as a whole and you can see why some of its parts are organized this way and why things that you did not notice the first time, it is worth add.

Select all the right pieces of text and ideas and keep them all in one place. For this purpose, again suitable Evernote, a conventional notebook - use a convenient tool for themselves.

Now that you've refreshed the memory book, gathered in one place all the notes left to remove it from the list of books from which to get the notes.

Do you have all the necessary information, if you need to refer to it in the future. In addition, you can combine these notes with the notes of the other books that have all-encompassing knowledge of a particular topic.

What happened next?

Often people who have just learned about this method, ask the question: "Does anyone actually constantly go back and re-read your notes."

Yes and no. Some come back, some not, and that's good. Remember the school days and cribs: until you write it on a piece of paper, everything is stored by itself, and to control it makes no sense to get it.

Therefore, in this case the result is not important, a huge collection of notes, and the process itself: you carefully read, you highlight the most important, are giving yourself time to refresh awareness and read in memory using notes.

Note - this is just help, they allow better remember important information and translate it into long-term memory. Material (or digital) copy - a fallback.

And even if you never go to your notes, you still train their ability to retain knowledge from books.

Step by step

We generalize all of the above in order to avoid having to re-read the article, if it is required to refresh its content in memory:

1. Make a list of books with the recommendations of professionals.
2. Learn to read nonfiction quickly.
3. Highlight important parts.
4. Finishing reading a book, add it to the list of books, notes of which need to be sorted out.
5. Put a book a week or two.
6. Go back to the book, quickly check it, stopping at important points and write notes.

Or maybe you have your own proven methods? Let's share in the comments.