How to read a book and memorize its contents
June 10, 2021
In this episode, we talk about a method that will help you remember many things when reading a book.
In the previous episode, we talked about the importance of reviewing the fundamentals. Now today we are going to go over a method that I use to make sure that I understand the fundamentals really well. And this podcast episode was inspired by a teammate of ours that asked, How do I remember so many things? And the thing is, I'm not doing any magic tricks. I'm actually just putting in the work and here's how I put in the work.
So whenever I'm reading a book, for example, I will read the book in different formats. So the first thing that I'm doing is I'm reading the audiobook. I guess you can say listening to the audiobook, but as I'm walking my dog Rari around, I will listen to the audiobook. And while I'm taking while I'm listening, I'm also taking notes on my notepad. And I have an entire folder in my notepad, just for books. So every time I read a book, I write down notes for every single chapter with the main takeaway for the chapter is etcetera. So it's all structured in my notes.
Then after I finished reading the audiobook, what I do is actually buy the Kindle version as well. And I will go through the entire physical book and I'll read that book as well. And the reason this helps is because I already know what the book is about. My mind is not going to get bored. So as I'm going through each of these chapters in the book, I'm able to fill in a lot more details about what's going on just because I have better context. And then of course, because it's a textbook. I can well, a book written in text, I can read this book much faster than I can listen to it.
So, the benefit, the first benefit is I'm walking around and I'm doing other things and I'm able to digest this information in a way where I can multitask like I can walk my dog around or I can go for a jog etcetera. And then the second way. But while I have this information already in my head, I am going through the book and I am reading it, which really solidifies everything that I've learned from the audiobook. And not only that, but you also pick up little things that you might have missed while listening because our attention span is really low, right? Sometimes we get distracted even while reading, sometimes our mind might wander and we have to go back and be like, oh, what page was I on and maybe refresh the page and start looking at it again. But when you read the audiobook first, you don't really have that problem because you know how the book is set up and how the book is structured.
And this kind of lets me go into a study technique that I used in college. So whenever I would read textbooks there's no audio version of the textbook. But I would do something similar to where I understood the context of the textbook. The very first thing that I would do is I would go to the end of the chapter, I would read the chapter summary, and then now I know what that chapter is about. I know everything that's going on. I can put the entire picture together. After I read the chapter summary then I'll go through the entire chapter and I look at the section headings. The section headings let me know exactly how it is structured so I can put a skeleton in my brain and when I'm reading it I can start hanging all the little pretty, I don't know I was gonna say leaves on the skeleton but you don't do that. That's not something that people do. Um, let's say it's a bird skeleton we're putting on feathers so we're adding more detail.
That's what I do with the textbook. I will go to the end of the chapter first I will read the chapter summary then I will look through all the different section heading so I can get the main structure of how the passage is structured. And then I'll actually start reading it. And as I'm reading it I'm also reading it really fast so my brain doesn't get bored because when you read at a very slow level your brain starts getting bored and that's how you get distracted and how your mind starts wandering. But if you actually increase your reading speed on purpose to the point where it's a little bit uncomfortable but not so uncomfortable, just to the point where it's challenging, your mind will stay awake and alert and you will be taking in a lot more information.
So this is how I review the fundamentals. This is how I memorized the fundamentals. This is how I make sure that I really understand the fundamentals. And if you miss that fundamentals episodes, go back and listen to the previous episode, I suppose. And then this is the one where we actually implement what we are doing. So next time you pick up a book, try to pick up different modalities, check out the audiobook, then read the book and what you'll find is you will understand it at a much better level. If you were just to only pick one, this is Robin Copernicus boom bam, I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
So whenever I'm reading a book, for example, I will read the book in different formats. So the first thing that I'm doing is I'm reading the audiobook. I guess you can say listening to the audiobook, but as I'm walking my dog Rari around, I will listen to the audiobook. And while I'm taking while I'm listening, I'm also taking notes on my notepad. And I have an entire folder in my notepad, just for books. So every time I read a book, I write down notes for every single chapter with the main takeaway for the chapter is etcetera. So it's all structured in my notes.
Then after I finished reading the audiobook, what I do is actually buy the Kindle version as well. And I will go through the entire physical book and I'll read that book as well. And the reason this helps is because I already know what the book is about. My mind is not going to get bored. So as I'm going through each of these chapters in the book, I'm able to fill in a lot more details about what's going on just because I have better context. And then of course, because it's a textbook. I can well, a book written in text, I can read this book much faster than I can listen to it.
So, the benefit, the first benefit is I'm walking around and I'm doing other things and I'm able to digest this information in a way where I can multitask like I can walk my dog around or I can go for a jog etcetera. And then the second way. But while I have this information already in my head, I am going through the book and I am reading it, which really solidifies everything that I've learned from the audiobook. And not only that, but you also pick up little things that you might have missed while listening because our attention span is really low, right? Sometimes we get distracted even while reading, sometimes our mind might wander and we have to go back and be like, oh, what page was I on and maybe refresh the page and start looking at it again. But when you read the audiobook first, you don't really have that problem because you know how the book is set up and how the book is structured.
And this kind of lets me go into a study technique that I used in college. So whenever I would read textbooks there's no audio version of the textbook. But I would do something similar to where I understood the context of the textbook. The very first thing that I would do is I would go to the end of the chapter, I would read the chapter summary, and then now I know what that chapter is about. I know everything that's going on. I can put the entire picture together. After I read the chapter summary then I'll go through the entire chapter and I look at the section headings. The section headings let me know exactly how it is structured so I can put a skeleton in my brain and when I'm reading it I can start hanging all the little pretty, I don't know I was gonna say leaves on the skeleton but you don't do that. That's not something that people do. Um, let's say it's a bird skeleton we're putting on feathers so we're adding more detail.
That's what I do with the textbook. I will go to the end of the chapter first I will read the chapter summary then I will look through all the different section heading so I can get the main structure of how the passage is structured. And then I'll actually start reading it. And as I'm reading it I'm also reading it really fast so my brain doesn't get bored because when you read at a very slow level your brain starts getting bored and that's how you get distracted and how your mind starts wandering. But if you actually increase your reading speed on purpose to the point where it's a little bit uncomfortable but not so uncomfortable, just to the point where it's challenging, your mind will stay awake and alert and you will be taking in a lot more information.
So this is how I review the fundamentals. This is how I memorized the fundamentals. This is how I make sure that I really understand the fundamentals. And if you miss that fundamentals episodes, go back and listen to the previous episode, I suppose. And then this is the one where we actually implement what we are doing. So next time you pick up a book, try to pick up different modalities, check out the audiobook, then read the book and what you'll find is you will understand it at a much better level. If you were just to only pick one, this is Robin Copernicus boom bam, I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
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