Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Eddie Hood
I just got a question from a listener that I thought you would all find interesting if you are trying to get better at taking notes while you read books. So he asked. Well, he said my number one issue is slowing down. In particular, I may read a book and underline things I find interesting by the time I get to the end. There's a good deal of stuff. I've called out stuff that matters to me, yet I have an inability to stop and reflect on the ideas or to journal about them. Instead, I keep feeling like I should immediately start reading the next book. With there being so many things I want to read, it feels like I should constantly be making a dent in my to read shelf and that all free time should be spent on that at the expense of absorbing or reflecting on the ideas I've just read. Okay, so if you can kind of connect with this idea of wanting to learn from your books and you've been highlighting things, but at the end of that book, you do nothing with those highlights and those notes because you feel like you need to get to the next book. So, so that you can read all these great books you want to read, then this episode is for you. Let's get into it. Welcome to this week's episode of the Read well podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and I'm your host, where I believe it's more important to read well than to be well read. So grab your favorite book, open up your notes, and let's get ready to learn something fascinating. Hey, friends, welcome back to the Read well podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and today I feel like garbage. Last night my family and I went skiing. I live in Utah, so we have like the greatest snow on earth. That's the tagline of the state. Not necessarily true. In fact, it's been a really bad snow year this year and it snowed yesterday for the first time this year. So we got up into the mountains, which was fun, but now I woke up this morning feeling like I had slept in my dream dryer machine and just have bounced around for eight hours in my sleep on like low tumble. And everything hurts. All my muscles hurt, my joints hurt, and I'm feeling bad for myself. Anyway. Yeah, so that's where I'm at this morning. And today we're talking about notes I. I wanted to share with you. This is a. A common feeling. What I'm hoping to do today is sort of give you a simple framework to help you actually take this information out of a book and use it right. You're going into these books to read them not just because they' but deep down inside, there's something about your life that you want to improve, right? That's why we read fiction. We want to learn about other people. We want to be inspired. We want to feel like we can do incredible things. We read nonfiction because we want to learn a specific skill. We want to get better at something, whatever. So you're coming to these books with a goal in mind. That's why they're on your to be read list. And you are always excited at the beginning, right? You get into the book and you start reading and you're full of hope, you're full of energy. And as you're reading, you're finding all of these really great passages. But by the end, like all projects, you kind of start to wear down a little bit, don't you? I mean, if it's a really good book, you don't want to stop reading it. But most books can feel a bit like a project. And you're usually excited. At least I am to be done with a book so I can start the next exciting one. And that is a problem. So I'm really grateful that I got this message today because I relate to this challenge, which is why. So step one, what I do, whenever I start a new book, I always begin by writing out one sentence in a notebook. Now, you can do this on the COVID of your book, like in the opening title cover here or something. Just write out one simple sentence, which is, why am I reading this book? What do I hope to get out of this book? Now, I actually make little custom notebooks in my bookstore called edgewaterbookstore.com and these are these little reading notes. I have one for fiction books that are, you know, you can customize it however you want. I've got one for non fiction books. But in the opening cover of all of these notebooks I make, there is a full paragraph here that gives you space to write and answer the question, why I'm reading this book. So that's the first thing we need to do before you crack the spine on your book. Sit down and ask yourself why you're doing it. Are you reading this book simply because your friend told you to read it or because it was on the top 100 list of all books you should read before you die? Or because. Or are you reading this book because you hope to get something out of it? There's something specific you want to learn? So I like to talk about Mastery by Robert Greene, for example. I'm going to use this as Our example book for today. Mastery is this concept of how to take any aspect of your life and try to master it. I know it's dead giveaway in the title there. Anyway, I came to Mastery as a person who wanted to be a better writer. Writing for me is important, and so I thought, I'm going to learn how to do that and how to actually get better at that skill. So when I sat down and began reading Mastery, the reason why, as I wrote up my sentence, was, I want to learn how to master, to the best of my ability, the skill of writing. Okay, so that's why I came to this book. Why are you currently reading your book? Now? If you can do that, if you can sit down and write that out, it's going to force you to get serious about your intention with the book. This sentence will become helpful at the end of the book when it comes time to extract information out. So don't ignore this step. Now, before we go on to the next steps, if you're finding this video helpful or you like any of the videos or podcasts I create, please take a moment to, like, subscribe. Do whatever you gotta do. It really helps move the channel along. And if you're listening on the podcast platforms like Apple or Spotify, please take a moment and give the show a rating if you are finding it helpful. Okay? So the next thing you do once you have your sentence written out, why I'm reading this book is to begin reading with all of that energy and passion that you have, right? You're excited to read it. You just bought it at the bookstore. You're in it to win it. I can't believe I just said that. But you are. You're in it to win it. And you'll start taking all of these notes, right? You'll start highlighting all over the place. You'll put little flags if you want. You don't have to have a specific system. But what I would say first of all is, as you're taking your notes, don't be too precious about it. Don't worry about sort of form and logistics. Just highlight things that are interesting to you, things that sort of spark your interest, things that capture your heart, things that make you want to be a better person or whatever it might be. Highlight and just keep on reading, all right? Don't let the highlighting or the note taking pull you out of the book or slow you down. I like to try and separate my reading from my learning, right? Because if I have to stop every page and then write an essay about what that page says, or I have to really think deeply. Then I find that the book starts to feel like a lot of work. And I'm like, ugh. And I feel like I'm digging through it. And by the end of the book, I just have no energy left. So I like to let the author just grab me by the hand and take me away to wherever we're going. And I'll highlight as I go, right? But that's it. No other work is required in the reading of the book. Now when I'm done with this book and I'm. I'm getting to the end, right, I'm. I've got like, I don't know, 30 pages left, 50 pages left, I almost always feel that sense of, okay, we're getting there, we're about done. And my brain goes, hey, we've got those other books we get to read next. Just like the person that emailed me. And I start to get excited again about new possibility, new things. I get to do or learn or whatever. And I start to lose my momentum on this book, which is a shame because it's such a great book. At least if I've read it to the last 30 pages, I clearly am enjoying it. But it is unfortunate that the next book is robbing from the current book. I despise that feeling, but for whatever reason, it happens almost every time now when I get to the end of the book, there's always this like, whew, okay, I did it. I closed the COVID And then I quickly run to the to be read shelf and grab the next book. Here's what I would say to this feeling. That's okay, let it happen. Keep the energy going, keep the excitement going, and let the book that you just highlighted sit on your shelf for probably three, four, five days, maybe even seven days, right? A whole week. Let it sit there and forget about it. Just forget about it. And then go on with loving the new book. All right, now, the next seven days, right? Maybe set a little alarm on your phone. Follow up with Mastery by Robert Greene or whatever you're reading. So in seven days, your phone's going to beep at you and say, hey, it's time to take a minute to do one small, simple thing. What you're going to do when that alarm goes off is you're going to go back to your bookshelf, you're going to pull the book from the shelf and you're going to open up to the front cover, or you'll open up your little notebook where you've written that simple sentence, and you're going to read that simple sentence. Why did I read Mastery by Robert Greene? And you'll see a sentence there that says, I want to master the skill of writing to the best of my ability. Whatever you put there, okay? And you're going to begin to go, oh, yeah, I forgot. I wanted to be good at writing. Or I wanted to feel like I was, I don't know, a wizard in Hogwarts or whatever it might be. Right. I wanted to just fly away. You can do this for fiction and nonfiction, okay? And yes, you can take notes in nonfiction and fiction. I make videos about that all the time. But take a second and read your simple sentence and connect with it. Now, here's the interesting thing. You're either the same person you were when you started your book and you're still interested in that concept, or you've changed, life has changed, and you no longer want to be a writer. Maybe you have a new interest, or you thought, well, writing isn't exactly what I thought it would be. I don't really want to put that kind of effort in there. And guess what? That's okay, too. If you're a new person and you've changed, then I would say take a minute to reflect on that. Like, why did you change? Why. Why have you sort of shifted perspective? But also, if you are the same person and you're. You're saying to yourself, you know what? I still want to master writing. I read this book. I know there are things in there that I found interesting. There's like a hundred highlights in there, I'm sure. And, yeah, I'm still serious about that concept. I still want to really make that a part of my life. Well, here's what you do. I want you to sit down at that book and don't make this a big deal. Don't make it work, okay? If you can connect with that sentence, the thing you really care about, this won't feel like work. But if you treat this like a high school assignment where you got to go through and look at notes, you're not going to do it. So focus on being a writer, not on extracting notes from the book. Okay? Now what you're going to do is you're going to go through page by page, and you're just going to quickly turn them until you see one of your highlighted sections. When that section comes up, I want you to read just the bit you highlighted. Don't reread the whole book yet. You don't have to do that, but at least read the section you highlighted, and if that section still sparks joy in you, you're like, wow, that's really good. I can use that as a tool in my writing toolkit or whatever you're doing. Then what you're going to do is you're going to either start or flag it or make a separate note of it. Again, I use these little notebooks that I create. There are these little boxes in here where each box of my notebooks are designed to capture those really good thoughts that will help you in your quest to be the new future you, Right? So however you do it, you're going to want to go through the hundred highlights you have in your book, and you're going to want to find the best of the best that actually help you. Now, if you're anything like me when you read, you're kind of excited in the moment, you know what I'm saying? And you're just like, oh, that's good, that's good, that's good. And you highlight way more than you should. So that's what we're trying to get past now is try to get over that initial excitement of the book. And you'll find that of the a hundred highlights, most of them really aren't that great, right? You'll probably find 10 or 20 that are really good that will influence your life and get you to your final destination. So all you're doing right now is searching for those 10 or 20 or whatever highlights that are actually useful tools for your toolbox. Once you find them, you're going to go through and make specific notes about them, okay? And then once you've identified those, the last step that I would love for you to do is as you've collected them. I've heard of some people just taking a picture of those passages on their phone. You can use one of the Edgewater Bookstore notebooks. You can do whatever. But once you've collected those 10 or 20 passages, then what I want you to do is sit back and. And give yourself 30 minutes to compare your question. I want to be. I want to master the art of writing to whatever my best skill is, to these 10 or 20 passages. And I want you to find at least one action that those passages are asking you to take, and you'll find them. There's something in there that says, hey, do this. Change this about your life. Go learn this, whatever it might be. All right? So I will share with you a passage from Mastery, for example, that helped me with this very concept. And I think this will get the point across. There's a really nice passage in here on the idea of mentorship. Mentorship being that if you want to learn how to master something, you should go find a master and you should spend time with that person and really sort of soak up their wisdom, their skill set, their knowledge and so on. If you want to be a great writer, sure, you can sit at your desk and you can sort of peck and poke at the keyboard, and over thousands of years, perhaps write something good, or you can seek out a great writer and you can just spend some time with them. So in this book, page 55, I wrote on the side here, choose an apprenticeship that will challenge and prepare myself. And the passage is simple. It says, this has a simple consequence. You must choose places of work and positions that offer the greatest possibility for learning. Now, I'm not going to read the whole thing because that's not why you're here, but I promise there's a whole passage here that I highlighted on mentorship and becoming an apprentice. Well, as I went through this book again and tried to figure out how I would apply these tools to improving my writing, I came across that passage and I thought, yes, that is one of the hundred that I actually need to capture and do something with. So as I line those up and I looked at these passages and of course, I stroked my chin, you know, thoughtfully, as though I was accomplishing something intelligent. I tried to think, well, how on earth do I find a mentor? And what I did is I went online and I found a writing program. It's called the Novelry, which is really great place where people can go to learn to write their books. This episode is not sponsored by the Novelry. I just love them. I'll put a link down to their website below, but it's a place where traditionally published authors are coaching new and upcoming authors on how to write, which is this great thing. So I signed up for that because of this stinking book. And now I have a writing coach and they're spending time with me, and I'm getting really great feedback on things I'm trying to make in my own personal life. So that's an example. Okay, Now, I went on to read other books in my TBR list. I'm excited about those. But this book mastery has helped me make changes in my life so that I can get closer to becoming the person I want to be. That's the entire point of reading a book, right? If all we're doing is reading books, to go from front cover to back Cover and then put them on the shelf and. And then rinse and repeat. I don't know about you, but that sounds exhausting and is not as fulfilling. I really want to take these books and do something with them, so I hope that helps. I hope you find a sense of action in your books. I hope you start to see them as instruction manuals for life, not just as forms of entertainment. They are both, but definitely something can be learned from both fiction and nonfiction. If you go through this process, the most important being to identify in writing, you have to write it down. I know you're going to cheat. You're going to just keep the sentence in your head. Well, I want to be a better writer and that will be good enough. It won't be good enough. I need you to write on paper. I want to read this book because. And then be explicit in that sentence. Be detailed in it. You don't need to write two sentences or a paragraph or a book, but write a simple sentence that tells you why you're reading this book. So that at the end you can come back and remember that initial excitement, remember that initial purpose, and then find an action from the book to help you achieve it. Here's the funny thing, too. When you go through this book again, you'll come up with 10 or 20 passages that really make a difference in your life. You'll probably find more than one action. In fact, you might find a handful of them. And that's good news. That means you've got fuel to become who you want to be. And you'll be sort of making progress towards that future you, your future self. Okay, again, if you found this week's episode helpful, please share it with a friend. Let people know that love books, that love reading, writing literature, trying to get the word out on the podcast and the show. And as always, remember to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. I'll see you all next time. If you'd like to take your reading to the next level, then head on over to thereadwellpodcast.com there you'll find daily posts on how to read well. You'll also get access to all of my book notes and tools for becoming a better reader. And as always, don't forget to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. Thank you for listening to the Read well podcast.