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The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

aliabdaal.com

11–20 of 184 posts

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#11
Interesting to see Ali Abdaal's content on HN. I regularly watch and enjoy his videos, but I've come to view them as light entertainment rather than anything genuinely insightful or actionable. They're well-produced and they talk about topics I'm interested in, but they don't say a lot. They're definitely algorithm-bait, and it's something that Ali openly admits, but I still (willingly) fall for the bait - there's something nice about procrastinating by watching videos on productivity and systems rather than Tik-toks or anything else. Ultimately, it's just as much of a waste of time, but you can more easily console yourself that the time is better spend "in case there's any life-changing insights here".

There never is, but best click the next video just in case.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#12

I like the idea of "synoptic" reading to learn about a concrete topic. It makes sense when different works offer different versions of what happens and why. But it seems weird to do it with fiction. If I'm reading fiction, I want to get into the world created by the author. I think repeatedly stepping in and out to compare it to other works, or analyze its construction, or think about a GoodReads review, all of that…

I interpreted the four levels of reading to be a subsection of "Category 3: Reading to Understand". So as I understand it, reading fiction in the way you describe would be reading to entertain, but if you are reading to study fiction of a certain kind as a topic, synoptic reading would apply?

Also, to your other point, the author seems to be fast and loose with his facts - clickbait titles and unverifiable Einstein quote too!

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/compound-interest/

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#13

I like the idea of "synoptic" reading to learn about a concrete topic. It makes sense when different works offer different versions of what happens and why. But it seems weird to do it with fiction. If I'm reading fiction, I want to get into the world created by the author. I think repeatedly stepping in and out to compare it to other works, or analyze its construction, or think about a GoodReads review, all of that…

I'm rereading "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren right now. It's worth picking up if you're interested in getting more out of your reading.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#14

In 4-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris brags that he is a judo champion because he found a loophole in the judging criteria. By forcing people out of bounds 3 times in a match, he could disqualify them and win by default. Ok, sure. Those are the rules, and he won. But in any way that really matters, he was not a judo champion. Further, this guy’s association with Tim Ferris (see his Youtube) is an automatic disqualification…

So your argument to dismiss this blogpost is guilt by association, am I understanding you correctly?

The blog post's author lists a Ferriss book as one of his "3 favorite books" in a video on his channel, so it's more like "guilt by endorsement".

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#15

For such a long blog, I still didn't understand how does one read more effeciently, or did I miss something? Or is it just a clickbait title, since the majority of the blog just defends reading and counts it's pros.

TL;DR : Start taking notes about what you read if you want to actually remember a bit of it. Here you go.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#16

In 4-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris brags that he is a judo champion because he found a loophole in the judging criteria. By forcing people out of bounds 3 times in a match, he could disqualify them and win by default. Ok, sure. Those are the rules, and he won. But in any way that really matters, he was not a judo champion. Further, this guy’s association with Tim Ferris (see his Youtube) is an automatic disqualification…

Of all qualms you could have against Ferriss, this is the pettiest.

It is explicitly against the judo rules.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#17

For such a long blog, I still didn't understand how does one read more effeciently, or did I miss something? Or is it just a clickbait title, since the majority of the blog just defends reading and counts it's pros.

I highly recommend that you consult the original book (also referenced in TFA) as your primary source to find answer to your question.

> Let it be understood at once that we are wholly in favour of the proposition that most people ought to be able to read faster than they do. Too often, there are things we have to read that are not really worth spending a lot of time reading; if we cannot read them quickly, it will be a terrible waste of time. It is true enough that many people read some things too slowly, and that they ought to read them faster. But many people also read some things too fast, and they ought to read those things more slowly. A good speed reading course should therefore teach you to read at many different speeds, not just one speed that is faster than anything you can manage now. It should enable you to vary your rate of reading in accordance with the nature and complexity of the material.

> Excerpt From: Mortimer J. Adler. “How to Read a Book.”

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#18

In 4-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris brags that he is a judo champion because he found a loophole in the judging criteria. By forcing people out of bounds 3 times in a match, he could disqualify them and win by default. Ok, sure. Those are the rules, and he won. But in any way that really matters, he was not a judo champion. Further, this guy’s association with Tim Ferris (see his Youtube) is an automatic disqualification…

The fact that Ferris is completely transparent about how he won tells me that he probably doesn’t actually think of himself as a war machine. You are also underestimating Judo here, too. It’s all about grappling and throws, positioning. Maybe keep that in mind a little bit when you say he won by forcing his opponent out of bounds. It’s not a street fight.

In judo, intentionally pushing opponent out of bounds is against the rules. Explicitly.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#19
I think this is missing an important fourth objective: reading to remember.

I'm not sure how much others can relate, but I am hopeless at remembering most of what I read or watch. Even when I spend several days pondering the same book chapter / paper / recipe / etc, taking thorough notes, there is no guarantee I will remember it six months or even one month from now.

I started to realize that I was collecting new data points about a topic but rarely making connections between what I already know and what I read. So, I've been trying to slowly improve my retention by being more purposeful about what I read and how I take notes. Some guidelines that have helped in the past two or so years I've been trying to become a better reader:

* Before reading, I try to make a mental note of what I hope to learn from reading, in as much detail as possible.

* While reading, I underline key words and take brief notes in the margin so it's easy to look back later and get a rough idea of what each section of the book or articles is about. I will write "?" where I am confused or where I disagree, "@" for interesting citations I might want to follow up on later, etc.

* After reading, I take very rough notes about what I thought the most important points were, my reactions, and what I want to know more about. Since I take Markdown notes, I can use #tags and [[bidirectional links]] to help myself find these notes later if I am ever reading about the same topic again.

* Some topics are important enough to spend more time on. I basically have my own "encyclopedia" of Markdown files for certain topics that I can add to every time I come across an interesting bit of information. This has been especially helpful for keeping track of random tidbits of information I learn about cooking.

Re: The Art of Reading More Effectively and Efficiently

#20

I think this is missing an important fourth objective: reading to remember. I'm not sure how much others can relate, but I am hopeless at remembering most of what I read or watch. Even when I spend several days pondering the same book chapter / paper / recipe / etc, taking thorough notes, there is no guarantee I will remember it six months or even one month from now. I started to realize that I was collecting new dat…

I like your points, and I think they'd be useful.

> I'm not sure how much others can relate, but I am hopeless at remembering most of what I read or watch. Even when I spend several days pondering the same book chapter / paper / recipe / etc, taking thorough notes, there is no guarantee I will remember it six months or even one month from now.

Have you tried teaching other people? That forces you to re-arrange what you know into a form that other people can understand, and that helps you understand it and retain it better. And those people get to ask you questions which help point to gaps in your knowledge.

I guess this is similar to "see one, do one, teach one" methods.

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