How To Get The Best Out Of That Book

Going by the promise I made in  my last article, I should be sharing with you the tips  on how we can both work together effectively and profitably in 2013. I will still do that but I just felt like responding to an issue that has been recurring  in the emails I have been getting since last year.

Most of my readers felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of information that come their way and having no clue on how to deploy them. One reader threw this at me: “While I deeply appreciate all your efforts at getting us informed, I just hope you know that some of us are overwhelmed by the amount of materials one has to go through to be successful. I am sure there is a shorter way to success or are there ways of getting the best out of those materials?”

I believe that at some point, you had probably read one time management tip or the other. Some say you should write down what you want to do every day and stick to that list. Those who follow this rule are quick to rush to check-off the list at the end of the day. It is, however, possible to do everything on your to-do-list and still discover that you have not accomplished much. That was a dilemma to me until I came across a new paradigm in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey.

The summary of the concept shared by Covey is that you really cannot manage time; you can only manage your priorities. Everyday has 24 hours and your management or whatever technique you adopt can neither reduce nor increase the number of hours in a day. You have no control over that. What you have control over are the things you do within that period of time.

I suggest you get the book and digest the section (especially Habits 1-3 and 7) on how to re-order your priorities to enable you accomplish more of very important assignments so that you don’t major in minor assignments as they would say.

Reading good books is a key task that should be embraced by all, especially those who really desire to distinguish themselves in certain areas. Your mind would remain dull unless you exercise it regularly through strategic and effective reading of good literature. When you expand your mind through reading, you can never be short of what to do when problems arise.

Let me share with you some few tips that I believe could help you in making the best out of books or journals or other information materials.

•You must see every book in your hand as a formula. As someone once said, every problem you would ever face has a solution in one book or the other.

The reasoning is this: An author would not just sit down to write a book if he does not have an idea to pass across. It is either he has used the idea himself or he has observed other people use the same idea with result. He then, decides to package that idea into a format that can enable you to get in less than few hours what could have taken you years of toil, errors and disasters to obtain.

Before you get a book, try to identify the central idea in it. You can look at the title, the content, the summary and even information about the author. All these may not take you more than five minutes. If what you discover addresses your needs, you can go ahead and add it to your list.

•Buy books that address the areas of your current concerns

This increases your motivation to read. That means you should buy books on purpose. If your current area of challenge is personal finance management, you should visit a bookshop and take inventory of the books that address that concern. Better still, you can get an experienced person in this area to give you his or her essential reading list. Apply the first tip to select the relevant ones (remember you are still window-shopping!).

You can go back to the bookshop to pick the ones you can afford.

•Work out a block of time where you do serious intellectual work. This may mean waking up an hour earlier than the usual time or staying up two hours more than your bed time. The key thing here is to be consistent. Do it as if you are training for a sporting event that requires preparations. One author also says that if you practice any skill for three months, such a skill would become automatic -just as you would normally empty your bowel.

•Use every spare time you have to read a chapter or two depending on your schedule. In Nigeria, people hardly keep to time when honouring appointments (if they do at all!). Rather than complain, stuff your bag with an interesting book and pull it out in such moments. You can finish three chapters of a book while waiting to see a managing director or inside traffic. You should prepare to wait for more time if the appointment is with a government official. Every idle time should be converted to a learning time.

•It is advisable to get an electronic version of the same book. Once this is done, you can convert it into different formats -you can put it into MP3 and load it into your iPod, your computer and you can also play it in your car CD player.

These days I encounter a lot of people who plug their iPod earphones into their ears and listen to one message or the other while exercising. I understand that we absorb more when we listen, but it is better to combine the two.

You can listen to a book while you are in the toilet. Indeed, a few of my friends confess to me that the best place they get inspiration is in the toilet. This makes them to go out of their way to make their toilets conducive to such indulgence. I have a friend who has a loud speaker in every point in his house to enable him to listen to good messages anywhere in the house including the compound.

• Read the book through once just to get a sense of the whole message. At this point you may not be particular about taking notes. It may just be okay, noting any point that attracts your attention. You should, however, treat the second reading as a serious business. You should read slowly and get your pen handy to note key ideas from the book.

Most people (including me), however, prefer to note down or mark whatever interest them on the pages of the book as they read along. Some use different colours of markers to shade different areas that appeal to them. Whichever method you adopt, it is advisable to approach the second reading as if you are searching for a solution to a problem.

•Read the book with the aim of both practising what you are reading and sharing with other people. These two can make a lot of difference to what you get in the book. Sometimes when people call me to say that they finished my book in less than three hours, I know they have not started. A single book can take you a month to complete if you adopt the method I have suggested above.

Depending on whether the ideas shared in the book are sequential or arranged to be independent, you should not move to the next chapter until you have something you can implement or teach. It is better to read one book in one month that makes a great impact than reading 10 books that have no proofs in your life.

• Buy books on recommendations. You would save a lot of time and money if you would just ask someone who is successful in an area of concern to you to give you his reading list. This works like magic. You just go straight to the point because someone has used it with results. Some books may look attractive outside but may be worthless in contents. You don’t want to waste your precious time on such. On the other hand, some books may not appear attractive but contains gems inside.

At the appropriate time, I shall be putting in your hands some of the powerful books recommended by my mentors that you can also buy. Be on the lookout for them.

Best things always!

•Identify an area in which you currently have a challenge.

•Buy a minimum of six books in that area (on recommendation).

•Devote time to read the books and extract nuggets for implementation

•Seek opinions of others in that area.