Don’t Waste Your Reading : PP94
Most ministry leaders I meet read. A lot. I think reading is a wonderful thing (and I am one of those people who will always ask what you are reading). Here’s the thing, the more we read, the more we need the ability to save what we are learning. Here are 4 ways to not waste your reading.
Making the most of your reading means figuring out a way to engage best, store best, and recall best. I have a YouTube video called “How To Read Complicated Things” where I walk through my plan to read the massive A Secular Age by Charles Taylor.
So here are the 4 ways we don’t waste our reading.
Have a Plan
Don’t just read randomly. Set a certain amount of time, and a certain time, and declare that for reading. I like to have a 30-minute block in the morning as well as evening. I also always have a book on my Kindle App on my phone that I am reading. It comes in handy while you are waiting on things or just have a few minutes to kill. I usually have at least one book with me in my bag at a time.
I also highly recommend having some sort of plan for your reading. Know what you are going to next, and develop some sort of a plan. This is really helpful if you are trying to learn more about something or gain a new level of understanding.
Have a System
I’ve got a super nerdy color code system for my reading. I order these book tabs from Amazon in a quantity (they are cheap) that allows me to leave them everywhere. Each color has a corresponding topic or theme that stays across all my reading. I just wish I could modify/add colors to Kindle so these colors could come across my digital reading as well.
I also take notes. Either digitally or analog. I also try to interact with reading and ideas in my working notebook as I think through things. This is especially helpful when I am reading a couple of books in a row that are on the same topic.
Eliminate Friction
I use Readwise.io for my reading. This service captures ALL my highlights across any digital reading I do (I also use Instapaper for online articles), as well as tweets I save and puts them in Readwise. They also have a phone app that lets me take a picture of a quote in a physical book and digitize it for readwise. I can also take notes inside of readwise (and it imports any notes from other services). Readwise then sends all of my notes to separate files in Evernote and Notion.
This makes recalling my reading and linking multiple sources together extremely quick and easy.
I also go through an analog book when I finish it. I look over my notes and add any parts I want to save in a note file in Evernote. I probably need to switch just doing a long Readwise session using their importer tool to keep things uniform.
Use Your Reading
You did all this work to not waste your reading, so make sure you use it. Learn to use your note database in sermon preparation and other teachings. Talk about your reading with friends! Engage in it with yourself though note-taking and other creation projects. Plus, share what you have finished online so others can find out about the great books folks are reading.
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