You may have heard me speak before about the huge amount of reading material that can fill up my desk. In my line of work as a Corporate Performance Adviser, there’s lots of industry news, information and interesting new research to keep up with. Sometimes, it can feel overwhelming, but it is a valuable part of providing both me and my clients with new possibilities.
Action – Here are some techniques for making your reading more enjoyable and effective.
Start by dividing everything into 4 piles; A for urgent and important; B for important; C for relaxing and non-urgent and D for everything else. Then throw out or pass on the D pile.
Next, give your reading a purpose. After looking at the material’s title and subtitles or table of contents, create some questions you want answered, like ‘what are the top 3 points in this document’ or ‘what in my current knowledge base can I relate to this topic’? Asking questions makes your reading active, not passive.
Then, instead of highlighting interesting bits, write notes in the margins or draw little pictures. And never skip over the printed graphs or tables. They are packed with concise information that is easily remembered.
And here’s something a little different. Whenever possible, particularly with the relaxing non-urgent stuff, get someone else to summarize it for you. Have a junior in your office, a teenager at home or a college student looking for some extra cash review the material for you and provide an executive summary.
Reading is NOT a waste of time in any profession. Be targeted and focused and you will find information in one document that may have taken you months or years to gather in other ways.