There is a book which I first read 25 years ago and which I can
still recall in some detail.
“Use Both Sides of Your Brain” by Tony Buzan is by far the best
self-help book I’ve read.
There is a book which I first read 25 years ago and which I can still recall in some detail. “Use Both Sides of Your Brain” by Tony Buzan is by far the best self-help book I’ve read.
Tony Buzan is an authority on reading, memory, problem-solving and thinking creatively. In this book he discusses techniques for improving these skills. That I can still remember much of what’s in this book says a lot about these techniques.
Our memory of what we read is not very good to say the most. After one day we remember only 25 percent and after two days we retain only 10 percent. By reviewing repeatedly in the months after we can retain a high proportion (about 80 percent).
We are not tested on most of what we read unless we’re students. What we read is typically not so important that we bother taking notes and reviewing in subsequent months. But we retain less than five percent.
I’m all for reading, but doesn’t this seem like a gross waste of time? If we remember so little of what we read, why not adjust our approach to reading accordingly?
When I say “I’ve read a certain book,” I usually mean I’ve read it from cover to cover. But if I can get almost as much from looking the book over in 15 minutes or an hour, maybe I need to rethink what it means “to read a book.”
I like Tony Buzan’s approach to reading non-fiction – the “organic study method.” It consists of four steps: overview, preview, inview and review.
Instead of starting at the beginning and working page by page through a book or article, begin with an “overview.” By looking at all the material not included in the regular body of the text.
The overview gives you quickly a big picture of what is covered. This includes: summaries, conclusions, back cover, tables, table of contents, index, illustrations, photographs, headings, italics, and graphs.
The next step is the “preview.” This covers certain parts of the regular text: the beginnings and end of paragraphs, sections, chapters or even the entire text because key information is usually there. The idea is to get a bird’s-eye view of the terrain.
The next step is the “inview.” This is where you fill in some of the detail, but it is not necessarily the most time-consuming stage. The most important material will have been covered already in the earlier stages.
If you come to a difficult section, skip over it. It may become clear later. In any case don’t get bogged down. You can return to it later when you understand the material better or you may realize it’s not that important.
Whenever I use this approach, I get good results. The problem is that it’s difficult to drop old habits. I frequently find myself reading everything word-by-word instead. One technique I use which is sometimes successful is to start at the very end of a magazine article with the conclusion and read backwards.
This keeps you from getting pulled into the normal flow of the article. It enables you to hover over the text to find the main points.
When reading magazines, I like to look first at the editor’s column. This is where the editor discusses briefly the various articles in the magazine. This gives me an overview of what’s inside and can pique my interest. The table of contents serves a similar purpose. If nothing there inspires me, I’m done.
The last thing I want to do is to read the magazine cover to cover. The most I will usually do is to look over one or two articles.
