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How to Get the Most Out of Your Reading Time
Learn how to allocate your reading time sensibly
Bill Gates’ has a simple principle for dealing with every book he picks up: “finish every book you read.” This doesn’t mean you have to pick up every bit of flotsam that ends up on your desk. As Eva Koffenheim astutely points out, the corollary to this principle is to be intentional about your reading material. You need to know the “book is worth your time before you open it”.
Be intentional about your reading — take a moment to appreciate how great this advice is. Being intentional is the only way we can deal with the deluge of information we face these days. As a species, we create 2.5 exabytes of data a day. That’s 2.5 with 18 zeroes behind it. By some estimates, we’ll be generating 463 exabytes of data by 2025. So, if you feel like you’re trying to drink from a fire hose now, in five years, you’d be trying to drink from 185 firehoses!
Eva has some useful suggestions for how to take action on Gates’ advice. One idea is to peruse the reading lists of smart minds, like Bill Gates’ reading list, before starting your own “want-to-read list.” But I feel that this is a point worth investigating further, so I thought I’d do a deeper dive on what it takes to “be intentional” with your reading.
