Oh man Paul ought to revise the book and make the following point stand out more. The book does talk about this, it just doesn't do so with the words " " attached to it.
Traditional reading is a fairly passive activity.
That is, most people read from cover to cover and expect the information to wash over them. They then remember the stuff that was most relevant and the rest is ignored. You still read it though.
ABANDON ALL PRECONCEPTIONS OF READING NOW!!!
Done that? Good. Right let's get to work.
From now on you are ACTIVELY ENGAGED in the learning process.
That's right, success is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. Forget that this is a book of paper. The author worked his ass off to impart in these pages all of the knowledge he took years to acquire.
Now if you were sitting with the author would you ask him to just tell you everything in a convenient order, and let the information wash over you?
If your answer isn't NO!!! then go back to the start of the post and try again.
Hopefully you would engage with him, ask him questions, get to the bottom of the bits that you don't understand. You wouldn't keep asking him the same generic question and hope to come away thoroughly understanding the book, would you? I hope not.
So here's the thing.
EACH OF YOUR QUESTIONS COULD BE A PURPOSE!
That's right, activate in short bursts, get your answer and then consider how that answer changes your next question. GET INVOLVED in the learning process and rather than have information wash over you, you will be diving for pearls with a 90% or better success rate.
From now on. don't think of reading as a lecture, think of it as a 2 way conversation with the author GET INVOLVED and you will see results.
Hope that helps
Matt
Last edited by Alex K. Viefhaus; 07/25/07 05:44 PM.
