I strongly believe that reading is extremely important. I mean, if the information is out there, why not use it? I find it absolutely amazing that statistically so few people read books after they graduate.
I read:
- Books – a bit over 50 books a year, essentially all of them non-fiction.
- Blogs, websites and news. I don’t read general news websites, since I don’t find them to be relevant. As for blogs and websites, I read them like books.
- Email.
- Scientific articles. More and more nowadays. I usually speedread them, since most articles aren’t all that great
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Reading books
My yearly average comes to about a book a week, but usually I read less during the busy times of the year and more during vacations. I read books from the start to the end, unless the book is really bad. Really, I have only had two to three books in the last years which I could not finish (unbearably simple, totally boring or too “sociological”).
The best way to read quickly is NOT to read something. I.e. pick a good book and avoid reading crap. Generally I focus on the negative reviews (a single “too simple” review on a US textbook = don’t buy) and the table of contents. I occasionally spend a lot of time on Amazon picking books for wishlists (one for each topic). Then I do a second review before purchasing the books, picking the best from the wishlists I have.
When reading I try not skip ahead, since I find that speedreading isn’t very pleasurable if you want to think and retain the information. If I come across a fascinating idea, I log it down in my notebook.
I’ve kept a reading log since 2006. In the log 1) keep track of when I started reading and when I finished the book and the number of pages, 2) write a brief summary of the book and a rating. Keeping track of the books I read helps me see how much other things have taken time away from reading.
In the near-ish future I am planning to get the log up and on Amazon+here.
Reading blogs and websites
I don’t follow blogs, I read them. When I find something interesting, I usually keep the website open in the browser until I have finished reading ALL of the articles on a site (well, everything in the archives that interests me). I am wondering if by doing this I am missing out on something, but so far not following blogs has worked fine.
Reading emails
Until a few years back I used to read all the mail I received. Now I don’t. I keep three email boxes, roughly: personal mail, work mail and stuff I might want to know about (lists, random stuff). For anything I need to reply to, I will set the star icon in Gmail so I remember to get back to it. No icon = will never open again.