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How one small change in my reading process completely changed how I learn, and how I apply what I learn to improve my life and my business.
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If you’re anything like me, just this morning you’ve read a half a dozen articles online. It probably started while you were still laying in bed this morning when your email inbox buzzed with an incoming email of recommendations from your favorite blog or social media site. You innocently clicked a link on an interesting looking article, which lead to another link, and another, and another…until you’ve spent the morning tearing through articles…and you can’t even remember what you read.
(I personally find myself most often getting sucked into the writings of passionate entrepreneurs selling the virtues of a new process, project, attitude, framework, approach or tool. Like many designers, design review blogs in particular are my ultimate weak spot, but that’s beside the point).
It’s an easy trap to fall into. Reading articles about my career field feels proactive. It feels professional. It feels like research. It feels like I am learning…while I am actually passively consuming the writer’s words; greedily sucking in their knowledge, philosophies and opinions.
The rush (and the instant gratification) when I feel like I’ve learned something new is downright euphoric. And with the literally infinite stream of content being created every day that gets surfaced in our news feeds, sent to our inboxes, shared by friends, “recommended for you” by blogging sites…we’ve become a society addicted to “the rush” of reading new information, but actually retain very little of what we’ve read.
That “rush” we feel when we’re passively consuming content is a false high. And like the addicts we are, we’ve begun to confuse the “rush” of taking in new information with actual learning.
Think back to the 15 (or so) articles you’ve read today. What did you learn from them? Can you even remember what they were about?
Likely, the answer is no.
At the end of this past year, I asked myself the same question. I looked back over the last year and tried to examine my growth. What have I learned this year? What new skills have I gained? Which articles or books really changed my perspective or “taught” me something? I know I’ve moved forward, but why? Did I learn as much and as efficiently as I could have?
I know I’ve read about 15 business/design/entrepreneurship/career related articles a day, and if I extrapolate that over 365 days, it means I’ve read around 5,500 articles this year (and that’s probably incredibly conservative). That’s a lot of reading, a lot of time, and a lot of info…and for the most part it has all blurred together in my memory into one hazy mush of information. I clicked and read many articles that at the time seemed valuable, but on reflection, couldn’t separate the individual “AHA” moments.
I couldn’t help but look back at my jumbled year of learning and think what a terribly missed opportunity it was to have just read so much without analyzing, reflecting and understanding what I had gained from it all. I vowed to never read another word as a “consumer of information”, but rather as a “collector of knowledge”.
My newest new year’s resolution; stop reading with the expectation of being taught something, and start reading to teach myself something.
We learn and grow not by simply taking in information, but by applying that information, making connections and reflecting. When we shift the responsibility off the writer and on to ourselves to get value out of an article or book, suddenly everything we read becomes valuable as a starting point for me to formulate my own thoughts, opinions, connections and ideas. Even a totally unrelated article can be the best starting point for creating unexpected connections and stimulating creativity.
I’ve implemented a new process for sucking as much value and learning as possible out of every single thing I read, and a new process for keeping a record for future reflection of what has made the biggest impact on me.
To turn reading into learning…my new process is “Read-Reflect-Write” (and repeat).
Now, every time I have an “AHA” moment in any article or book I am reading, I pull myself out of the text and force myself to think about why that passage or point amazed me or surprised me or enlightened me, or even angered me. I reflect on how this “AHA” moment could or could not be applied to Packback (my business) or my own personal growth, and why. And then I write.
Sometimes it’s just a few words to summarize my thoughts, or sometimes it’s a full page of notes when my reflection takes me off on a tangent of creative brainstorming. Sometimes, these notes now evolve into a blog of my own, or a process change, or a new project. It doesn’t even matter if these notes make sense to anyone but me (or even myself 12 months from now), it’s the process of actively reading, reflecting and writing my thoughts that helps me extract tangible, applicable learning from any article and makes the learning stick. I now keep a notebook beside my computer to jot down scrawling notes, and a Trello board open to keep track of particularly eye-opening “Read-Reflect-Write” moments. I’m building my own personal treasure chest of what I’ve learned…and my new addiction is not read the next article, but to collect the next piece of learning.
This process has taken reading from a voracious, gluttonous, indulgent feast on other’s brilliance…and turned it into an exciting, active treasure hunt for the best bits of learning locked inside of every piece. Suddenly an article about some new project management process no longer seems like a prescription for success, but another filter to help me analyze my current process. Instantly, the bloggers I don’t agree with personally become infinitely more interesting as another perspective to help me reflect on your my approach or opinions.
It’s kind of like that moment in the Matrix where Neo stops seeing the Matrix as reality and starts seeing it as something pliable that he can bend to his will. It’s like seeing the “source code” and realizing that everything you read, see, experience, touch, listen to, try or do is not the answer, but the starting point for you to formulate your own opinions and thoughts.
If you’d like to try out the same “Read-Reflect-Write” process, keep a notebook or a note-keeping tool on your computer at-the-ready to capture the brilliant “learning” moments when you read a new article. But the most important step is “Reflect”. Try to connect back every “AHA” moment in an article or book back to your life, your business, your community and ask yourself why that passage made you stop and think. Think about how you can apply what you’re reading to improve your world, and let your own creativity flow.
If you want to take it to the next level, let the “Write”stage of your process evolve into blogs or articles of your own, taking inspiration from the original piece you read and offering thoughtful, valuable commentary. Then someone else can “Read-Reflect-Write” using your piece as their inspiration and learning tool.
Let’s all stop consuming…and start creating value.
