Hot answers tagged reading
15
As an easily distracted reader, I’d be more than happy to share some of the measures I have been using. But first I believe we should go into the reading mode with a clear goal: is the reading for leisure, structural knowledge, or supplemental information? Knowing this will help us decide on the best strategy.
Leisure reading
For leisure reading I’d just ...
9
Some ideas for your 12 books:
Choose your books carefully. Pick good books on topics you want to know about.
Read for enjoyment first, information second.
Don't get hung up on the number of books you read. Instead, focus on getting the best from each book.
If numbers really matter to you, choose thin books.
Consider whether all your books need to be ...
8
It's up to what I expect from that book.
If I read it because I want to know how to do something I never know it before, I will read and try to code all along (and also do some exercise). That give me some taste of that thing.
If I read it because I want to know some concepts behind something, often when I try to learn something new, I will focus on why ...
7
As others have said, highlighting and/or taking notes can be a very useful tool. If you find that these don't work for you, however (as they often don't for me), you can try another tactic: read out loud.
You don't have to speak loudly or do a dramatic reading, or anything, but reading the words out loud forces you to focus on them in sequence (as opposed ...
7
1) The technique is to force yourself to read say for 20 to 25 minutes. even after that you find yourself distracted then i believe that you have to find something more interesting to read :).
2) Lack of goals associated with anything will never ever get you motivated to finish something. try to associate some goals with your reading.
3) Why not after ...
7
I often use the costumer reviews from amazon. Not only for books. I read the reviews with one or two stars and the comments of these reviews. If these reviews contain good points which are backed up by arguments I can follow, these reviews give me more hints then the five or four star reviews.
Also the comments on these review reveal more pros and cons.
...
6
Here's a link to criticalthinking.org. That may be helpful as a start, especially in light of your earlier question. To me, this sounds like you're not quite sure how to think about something or how to gain an understanding of something to formulate how to think. Those are critical thinking skills, and there may be some tips there.
More to the point of ...
6
The simple truth about learning is that the most effective techniques for learning something are more time consuming and can therefore feel more tedious. Since your stated critique of writing chapter summarizes is that if feels tedious, I'm inclined to suspect that you won't find much that is both faster/easier and simultaneously more effective.
One thing ...
5
I would suggest don't read "any" book just because you want to develop a reading habit.
Take up a book on a topic which excites you and read it. Go at your own pace but be consistent.
Also, try to immerse yourself in the book.
I don't believe that you need to remove all the distractions for reading a book. Afterall, people read books while travelling also. ...
5
You may try using an e-ink display for reading, possibly with note-taking functionality (see Sony models of ebook readers).
Other solutions could involve different visualizations for web pages: you could try using Pocket, Evernote Clearly or similar services.
4
I read a german on book on this topic. It is all about building associations. The new knowledge has to be hanged on existent knowledge. If you are reading something and some fact creates an image of a donkey in you (association) then just connect it with this image.
It does not matter with what you are connecting the new knowledge, but that you do it. Your ...
4
Disclaimer - I'm writing this from the point of view of someone who can already program, if you were learning your first programming language the answer would be very different.
I avoid doing the exercises because I believe that the structure of programming books hasn't really updated to reflect the rise of the internet (oh they put their source code ...
4
I heard that pomodoro technique is very effective for reading. I googled around and found this blog >> Reading and effective note as one of the reference[1].
My friend also tried it and shared that it's very effective for her.
I believe the reason behind the effectiveness is that Hippocampus[2] (the part of the brain that writes what you have read into ...
4
I am 44 weeks into my year with the goal of reading 52 books in the year. I am right on pace.
The way I did it successfully was ever time I picked up a book I figured out a way to track the number of pages I needed to read in it per day to finish in 6 days (one day of wiggle room in case something weird happened). I can't tell you how great this is. Instead ...
3
Try using a cloud synchronization service like Dropbox, there are other good services but I only use this one. As I do not neither own an iPhone or an iPad I do not know how good or comfortable their apps are, but it works with Android.
Basically you get some (free) storage space (e.g. 2 GB). With their different applications you can use Dropbox on ...
3
When it comes to learning from books, the most valuable thing working for me was to condense the information needed from the book onto a more tangible and graspable media. For me that was A6 index cards. On those cards I'd sum up any field of information that needed to be summarized together, using text, structuring means and graphics. The resulting card ...
3
It helps if you are interested in what you are reading. If you find you aren't interested, my suggestion would be to try and make it relevant enough to you that you do become interested.
If you really can't do that, it will be a slog, so plan for regular breaks.
To force you to read/comprehend the text, you could try taking notes - a summary of each page ...
3
Practice concentration/breath meditation.
There are lots of ways to do this, but the basics are as follows:
Pick a rhythmic activity to concentrate upon, such as the feeling of breathe coming in and going out of your body. Or the feeling of air rushing in and out of your nose.
Be attentive but gentle; if you find yourself thinking about something else ...
3
There is a great book that describes that problem (and many others) - it's called "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor your wetware" by Andy Hunt, author of Pragmatic Programmer (another great book!). He writes in a general manner but his book is addressed to software developers.
Basically Andy proposes a process of deliberate reading as a way of ...
3
Just because you don't want to learn about CS after work/on the weekend, doesn't mean nobody else does. It's fun!
You can try to make it fun for yourself. Examples:
Study with a friend
Take an online course
Use what you learn to make a project
Or you can force yourself to study. Examples:
Study at least 15 minutes a day. You'll either get drawn in ...
3
You don't state what level of TCS problems you're dealing with or what books you're reading.
There are several incredibly bad textbooks in the field of TCS. Maybe you should look for alternatives which may provide better intuitive explanations, rather than just symbolic proofs. Or maybe you should back down for a while and go back to studying the basics if ...
3
I'll start with reading speed. I know that for me, speed can be affected by my level of focus, distraction, and the complexity of the material I'm reading. For instance, Reading a short story by Raymond Carver, with his sparse language breezes by. However, switching to Dickens, with embellished, and sometime run-on sentences, I find myself re-reading ...
2
When offline, method 1
I use this method for "light reading," like when I have a lot of articles to read, and not all of them may get into the synthesis stage. In most scientific journal articles the first page nearly always contain the title and abstract. I rip that page off, or just print that first page online, and then make my notes at the back of that ...
2
First of all I would recommend listening to books that are unrelated to your main line of work. This is a great way to expand your horizons, and to keep your mind off work while you are driving. This might actually enhance your creativity and problem-solving abilities when you do get to work.
In short, don't take it so seriously. Listen for pleasure. ...
2
Something to consider is whether you're better off reading the text or hearing the text. There is a difference as some people may do better reading the text off a screen or in a physical book and others may prefer to hear someone else reading the book. Thus, audio books may be something to consider as a better way of assimilating the information from ...
2
Try to give yourself a goal beyond just reading.
Why do you want to read?
Maybe you could set yourself the goal to blog about what you learn?
Or maybe you could try to learn speed readign while reading this book?
Or maybe use this book as a support to practice mind-mapping?
Sometimes when I find a task not interesting enough in itself, I look at it in ...
2
I don't think there's any real technique for this. You just have to get comfortable. I found that my productivity soared simply by replacing the lights, changing my computer chair and placing my monitor at a comfortable angle. There was also this very large widescreen monitor in my university labs, which you could turn to portrait view, and it made reading ...
2
The Calibre eBook management application can do exactly this and more.
As it says on the features page:
E-book conversion calibre can convert from a huge number of formats to a huge number of formats. It supports all the major e-book
formats.
The conversion engine has lots of powerful features. It can rescale
all font sizes, ensuring the ...
2
I think you need two things: Focus and Motivation. I also suggest to use Pomodoro Technique for help you focus. Think reading like playing a game. Set your goal "I will focus on reading this book for 10mins" then start. When you get the goal, give yourself some rewards. It's OK to take a break for relax, this is a good reward for your brain. Take several ...
2
I have the same problem. I struggle with the symbols, and that makes it really hard to follow the theorems.
Recently I came across a statistics book at a library which had a list of those symbols and their meaning at the start of the book and while reading I realized something that was so obvious - I should've compiled a similar list and kept it next to me ...
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