3 tips to learn more from every book

When I was in my late teens I used to have this “who reads more books” competition with my grandfather.It was pretty fun and wonderful as it allowed me to spend a lot of time with him, and of course whenever we went to the bookstores, he would be the one buying the books.

I now believe that I would have learned a lot more if I had focused on other things rather than simply winning. A couple of reasons:

1. I didn’t choose my books wisely.
2. I didn’t give myself time to digest them.

For me, the main purpose of reading is not pleasure, it’s learning. I enjoy reading but not as much as learning, exercising, writing, listening to a podcast or even playing Playstation.

Here’s what I could have done to learn more and I now try to do with every book that I read:

1. Choose a book whose teachings you can implement right now. I believe the best way for us to learn is by doing, so the best way to absorb a book is by immediately try to do whatever it is that you have read in it. I recently read Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker and I immediately started to follow two of his recommendations on better sleep: no coffee (in my case no coffee after 12 pm) and sleep in a room room with 18–19 degrees celsius, which is no problem at all with a pregnant wife.
2. Re-read it and summarize it. Maybe not read everything again but at least whatever it is that you highlighted. And then write in your own words, in whichever format you prefer, could be a brief summary. A couple of months ago I read Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street. After reading it I re-designed my startup’s hiring process to make sure we followed some of the books main teachings: have a clearly defined job description and make it clear to everyone what success looks like for that particular position.
3. Discuss it with an expert or someone else. Discussing a book with an expert on the matter is the next best thing to having a discussion with the book’s author. I just finished reading Money: Master the Game by Tony Robins and I immediately discussed it with Christian Hauswaldt, CEO of Inves+ed and personal finance expert to better understand how I could put it into practice myself.

Whatever the reason you read for and whichever book you read, make sure you both enjoy and learn from it.