Reading As An Experience

There are heated arguments online about the validity of speed ready. Does it work? Do you remember anything afterward?

But the problem with speed reading is more fundamental. It misunderstands the point of most reading.

With emails at work or how to articles, the point is to process information. Doing it quicker is better.  But when you read a book 99% of the time the value you will get out of it will come from your thinking, and not simply the information on the pages.

I read a great blog post from Taylor Pearson this past summer that made this clear to me.

Taylor hits on the importance of thinking time while reading:

“…reading books helps me better understand and define problems. It allows me to take orthogonal approaches to traditional problems that often yield more elegant solutions.

This is why I don’t speed read or listen to audiobooks on double speed — it gets rid of all the thinking time, which is the whole point of reading.

I will read (or reread) books on marketing when I am putting together marketing campaigns, not because there is new information to learn, but because the four or five hours I spend reading will give me way more ideas than if I just sit down and stare at a computer screen to try and write a marketing plan from scratch.

It creates time to think and gives me new approaches.”

I like to read because it helps me think. I learn new things, but more than that it allows me to see my life through a different lens. At times when I’ve practiced speed reading, it just isn’t as enjoyable. I get through books quicker, but the experience isn’t as good.

You Never Read the Same Book Twice

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s no the same river and he’s not the same man.” – Heraclitus

Understanding the value of thinking while reading will change the way you read. The hesitation between reading something new, and re-reading something old, slips away when you realize that the experience of reading will be completely different because your situation in life is completely different.

I’m re-reading Atlas Shrugged right now and experienced this first hand. I read it for the first time in 2014 while traveling, again in 2015 when I was working as a cook and starting our podcast, again in 2017 while I was freelancing and working on building up our podcast, and again now a year later. Each of those times is a unique experience and even though I know how the story plays out, it still makes me feel deeply inspired and makes me think about how I am living my life.

Before Atlas Shrugged I re-read Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield. I knew all the stories and lessons, but reading it again it was equally valuable to me because it helped me think about my life my work in new ways.

I think this is an important lesson that very few people understand. Most reading is about thinking, not reading. Most writing is about thinking, not writing. Don’t be afraid of how slow you read or how many times you re-read an old book because the value of the experience will dwarf the value of the information alone.