How do you read your books?
I read this in Jane Duncan Rogers’s newsletter, and liked it so much I wanted to share! (Remember – I’m the one who had to get rid of a load of books because my husband said my bookshelves were bringing the ceiling down….!)
How do you read your books?
You will already probably know the importance of reading books as part of your personal and business development journey.
Many of the business ‘gurus’ tell us we should be reading one book a week at least if we want to be successful.
This is either daunting or exciting depending on where you are coming from, or whether you have learnt speed reading or not. But how do you actually read your books, and how might this process in itself affect your success?
Here’s my top ten pointers to successful learning from books, discovered over the years:
1. Have more than one on the go, on different topics, so you can pick up whichever one matches your mood at the time.
2. Write in them! Yes – have a marker pen handy always, so you can underline, make comments, and even longer notes in the back. These will be very useful when you come back to re-reading them. (If you come from the school of thought which says never mark a book, then try using a pencil instead, or be radical and do it anyway!)
3. Never read a business book last thing at night. At best, you won’t remember in the morning what you’ve read, and at worse, it will keep you awake! Always have a selection by your bed if that is where you read; but choose a novel to read just before you go off to sleep (this is also the one you read when you are having time off from work.)
4. You don’t have to finish a book. Who said you had to? The pleasure in reading is the journey, as you’ve probably noticed when you are reading a great story and you don’t want it to finish. Similarly, you don’t have to begin at the beginning – you can dip in and out; read the end first; move backwards and forwards through the book. You can read it in anyway you like.
5. You don’t have to remember everything you read – what you need to know in the moment will stay, and you will be inspired to look at that book again when you need more information from it.
6. Re-read your highlights after you have finished your book. Or share them with your partner or a friend. This way you are benefitting from repetition, which is the most powerful way to learn.
7. Pay attention when you find a book coming your way from 2 or 3 different sources; it probably means it is meant for you!
8. Come to each book you read with the certain knowledge that you will find in this book exactly what you want at that particular moment in your life.
9. If you write articles, keep a notebook handy or a computer file for useful quote from the books you are reading. Organise this so it’s easy to find them.
10. Re-reading a few brilliant books over and over is likely to be more effective than continually reading one after another thinking you have to get to the end and then you’ll know the gem you’ve been looking for. Trust me – I’ve done it and have the library to show for it!
Jane Duncan Rogers runs RichThinkers, inviting small businesses and self-employed professionals to align their thoughts, feelings and actions with the heart and soul of their business for greater success and more meaningful results. Visit http://www.richthinkers.co.uk and sign up for her free weekly newsletter, Spirit of RichThinking.
Welcome to the “Sandisfield Times”
I was delighted to hear on BBC Radio 4 this morning about the launch next month of the “Sandisfield Times”.
This is a new local newspaper for the town of Sandisfield MA in the USA that goes back to the original principles of such publication with a motto (Tribunis Publis) and a Mission (Reliable. Regular.Relevant). It’s philosophy is delightfully set out by the Editor-in-Chief Simon Winchester.
This is one innovation (if you can call a reversion to an earlier age an innovation) which I look forward to making its way across the pond.
Lest we Forget – thoughts from Bob Mason on Remembrance Day
This was sent to me by my good friend Bob Mason and is very appropriate for today.
Lest we forget – a story of three brothers
In 1915, three brothers Ernest, Harry and George Maywall walked from Attercliffe to Edmund Road Drill Hall and joined the KOYLIs (Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry).
For the next two years they trained, at first living in tents on the moors high above Sheffield, then in leaky wooden huts that they built themselves.
Why this didn’t break their spirit no one has ever been able to work out but like all the Pals Battalions as they became known, they were some of the finest troops ever put into the field by the British Army.
The three brothers were eventually posted together to the KOYLIs 2nd Battalion in Flanders. In 1917 they went over the top in one of the battles in the countryside that surrounded Ypres in Belgium.
Sometime during the battle a shell landed near the hole where the three brothers were sheltering. All three were wounded and were taken to the St Julien Dressing Station.
Here Ernest died and is buried in the cemetery that stands on the spot where the dressing station was in 1917.
Harry recovered from his wounds but had shrapnel in his body till he died in 1962.
George had no physical wound but the blast from the shell gave him what was then known as shell shock and now is called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD for short. He spent the rest of his life in and out of hospital with mental health problems.
Last year my wife and I realised that no one had ever visited Ernest’s grave because my parents generation thought that going to Bournemouth was going ‘foreign’ so going to Belgium would be like going to the other side of the world.
Living where we do, getting to Belgium is not a problem at all on the ferry from Hull so we booked a holiday in Ypres.
St Julian Dressing Station Cemetery wasn’t hard to find as it is just 2 miles outside Ypres. Like all War Graves Commission cemeteries it is immaculate and the local people make sure it stays that way.
We found Ernest’s grave and left four poppy crosses one each for Harry, George, Mable and Lillian (Lillian is my Mother). We felt that somehow we wanted to bring all five siblings together again.
At 8pm that same evening we were privileged to attend the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres.
We had no idea what to expect other than the Ypres Fire Brigade sound the last post on Silver Bugles that were donated by the Royal British Legion for them to use.
As 8 pm approached and the traffic was stopped, a hush fell over the hundreds of people lining both sides of the road that still passes through the gate.
As the bugles rang out echoing round the memorial, the hair on the back of my neck stood up and many in the crowd were openly weeping.
It was as though the hundreds of thousands of men and women who had died within a mile of where we were standing had come to stand with us as we thought about their sacrifice.
It was the most moving experience of my life and there is no doubt in my mind that we WILL remember them.
