【How to Read Books】gonjitti's Way of Reading and Remembering Books

In a nutshell

1. I get asked how I read books a lot lately. I read because I can't remember things otherwise.
2. Introducing the principles of reading books. Choose a book, read it all the way through, read it twice, if you feel it's a good book, be sure to summarize it, and reread the knowledge until you remember it.
3. The way to store knowledge from books is through summaries, highlights, and screenshots.

I get asked how I read books

I get asked how I read books a lot. I actually only started reading books properly after I entered university, and before that, I only read textbooks and reference books. This is because I was concentrating my resources on studying and Nobunaga's Ambition.

I started reading books after my first year of university, when I realized that I could get information faster and in a more organized way by reading books than by listening to people. The probability of getting good information by listening to people was low. Also, I realized that if I didn't acquire a good education, I wouldn't be able to come up with any solutions to social problems, and I became terrified of not knowing things. Especially in my first year of university, it was 2011, right after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and I was very interested in nuclear power and nuclear fusion, so I took classes frequently, but I remember being frustrated with myself for not being able to come up with any solutions.

I am proud to have digested 2,000 books to date, regardless of the academic field, and I feel that books are the quickest way to learn.

I thought the best way to learn how to drive a car fast was to cram the theory from a book (the one by the great Michael Krum) (but I didn't have the money and my interests were scattered, so I couldn't practice. I want to try again), and programming was faster to learn by systematically grasping the concepts from a book. On the other hand, what I'm not good at is learning things from videos or in a classroom setting. To be honest, time passed so slowly that I got bored, and I ended up hating the subject of the class I was taking, so I haven't done it recently.

However, I have recently realized that the knowledge I learn from people is valuable, and I am actively trying to accumulate knowledge by talking to people. There is a lot of knowledge that is not in books, and my policy has recently been reversed.

So, in order to make time to meet people, I am making the time I spend reading and memorizing books much more efficient. Below, I would like to introduce my basic way of reading books, so if it is helpful, please try it.

There is no point in having knowledge from books unless you can remember and use it. Don't look away from the cruel facts.

First, let me write down my basic policy.

1. Choose a book. Don't read useless books. Life is finite.

2. Read the book all the way through. Don't just look at the table of contents and decide not to read it.

3. Read the book twice.

4. If you feel it's a good book, be sure to summarize it.

5. Reread the knowledge as many times as necessary until you can remember and use it.

Choose a book

Life is finite, so you can't just read strange books. So choose. Read the masterpieces carefully. Did you know that you can actually talk about a book without reading it? When you reach a certain level, you can generally understand the content by looking at the title and table of contents, so you don't have to read it. For details, let's read "How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read."

Read the book all the way through

Speed reading techniques often say to just look at the table of contents and read only what you need, but I don't do that. That's only possible with dictionary-like books, and basically, you can't grasp the author's intention unless you read the book all the way through. Personally, I'm so skeptical that I suspect that people who use speed reading techniques don't read between the lines at all, and that the knowledge doesn't stick with them anyway.

When you're reading another book, if you can't remember something to the extent that you think, "Oh, this was written in that book, and the content was like that with this intention," then you probably haven't gained anything from reading the book. Try to remember what was written in Hard Things or Zero to One.

Read the book twice

Related to the above, read the book twice. The first time, read it all the way through while putting on sticky notes, and the second time, skim it and look at the sticky notes again. The best way is to read it twice on the same day, but if that's difficult, the next day is fine. Anyway, it's no use if you don't remember it.

If you feel it's a good book, be sure to summarize it

The ability to summarize is important in life, and it is also useful for retaining memories. Furthermore, it would be even better if you could remember it with pictures. Be sure to take a picture of the good diagrams in that book and save them in Evernote or Notion.

Reread the knowledge as many times as necessary until you can remember and use it

I find it strange that people read a book once, forget it, and consider it done. I understand that you're tired, but you're just tired. Be sure to reread it until you confirm that you have memorized it. Some people are satisfied with just reading a vocabulary book when studying English, but that's not good enough. In fact, you shouldn't spend a lot of time on a vocabulary book, but you should concentrate on it for a short period of time, with the momentum to learn 1,000 words in 2-3 days. Since you're just memorizing, do it all at once without spending a lot of time. This is a necessary step to increase the time you spend thinking. According to Den Fujita, if you don't have a good education when you eat, the Jews will make fun of you.

The way to store knowledge from books is through summaries, highlights, and screenshots

Finally, I will introduce how to store knowledge from books using Evernote and Notion.

First, if there is a Kindle version, choose Kindle instead of a physical book. This is because you can take screenshots and highlights, so you can automate it when you read it a second time. I wrote about how to use Kindle in another article, so I hope you will use it. 【Kindle】Create a book summary in an instant by copying and pasting highlights from a site that lists Kindle highlights

Unfortunately, if you only have a physical book, put a lot of sticky notes on it and transcribe it properly. It's a lot of work, but the transcription itself is quite effective.

Especially for design books and books with many diagrams, be sure to take screenshots. I want you to keep it for personal use, but I recommend it because the range of application expands when you remember it with diagrams.

A hack I recently invented is to create a screenshot album for each book in Google Photos, which has unlimited capacity. This makes it very easy to refer to the summary of the book, so I recommend it.

Aside (Recommended Book)

A recommended design book. It's packed with design tips that you can use forever. I use it often myself.