Books are powerful tools for transmitting knowledge, but have you extracted as much of them as possible? Reading is a process that can be improved, resulting in a more efficient absorption of the content presented on the pages of the most varied volumes. The most important thing is to have a taste for reading, taking advantage of the best in publications and seeking a more effective understanding of this content.

9 Tips on how to absorb the most knowledge from books

Next, you’ll see powerful tips that will make your reading process more effective and allow for greater knowledge absorption.

1 – Understand that reading is also leisure

I start this list of tips by alerting you to a fact that goes unnoticed by many people, which is that reading can also be leisure. This means that you can and should read books for fun, regardless of whether they have any content deemed useful or not. What I am suggesting is that you get out of the bubble of purely technical readings, allow yourself to read fiction books, short stories, chronicles or any other style that satisfies your reader’s spirit.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, reading is a process that can be constantly improved, the more you read, the better you will be at going through the words arranged on the pages and finding a meaning for them. Your analytical reading ability (that used to learn a content) is enhanced when you have contact with various types of languages, so don’t be afraid to read from biographies to works of poetry. Remember, too, that there is always something that can be learned from the most curious sources.

2 – Reflect on what you are reading

Following the first tip, you will have an interesting sequence of books on your list of past and future readings. To get the most out of each one, it is necessary to learn to reflect on what is being read. Remember that all books have something to teach, including those that seem like a hobby. So, get in the habit of putting your brain to work, taking the situations presented in the pages of the volume into real context.

Make connections between what you are reading and reality, even if it is a science fiction publication. When you do this exercise, you allow your reading to be more complete and create mechanisms to not forget the most relevant points, it is as if you had thrown an anchor, attaching knowledge to your port and being able to access it when necessary.

3 – Investigate the book before reading

Do you have a habit of reading the synopses of books in bookstores or researching more about the items you are putting in your shopping cart in an e-commerce? So, you already do a kind of research on the books before you actually start reading them. This process is relevant for setting what is being read and making it closer to that content.

In addition to checking the cover, reading the ear, taking a look at the preface and trying to understand how a volume argues, it is possible to use tools such as search engines to learn more about the author, as well as to compare this book with others titles you’ve already read or intend to read. Find out more about the context in which the writer wrote that work, so you will have an easier time understanding the subtext, which are the ideas that are contained in the work, even if discreetly.

4 – The 50 page mark

Start paying attention to your familiarity with the work in the first 50 pages, if even this brand you are still getting to know the content and are unable to give at least superficial opinions about what you are reading, it may be that you are not enjoying the reading so much. To have a more effective absorption of what is in front of your eyes hungry for knowledge, do a search for reviews before going through the first line of the text.

Also, talk to your friends who have already read the work so you can feel more prepared. For those who reached the mark on page 50 without a broader understanding of the volume, I recommend that you leave the book a little aside and search for valid information to delve deeper into the text.

5 – Mark your books, question

Some people have a genuine and very beautiful attachment to books, avoiding as much as possible to mark and / or scratch them. However, it is essential to understand that reading is to establish a dialogue with the author, so that you can and should write down your thoughts in the most varied excerpts and pass a highlighter pen where you find it relevant. These notes left by the reader allow, after some time, to make a new reading of the volume with a more critical bias. Then, you will know exactly what you thought at that time.

Do not underestimate the power to leave your mark on your favorite books, it helps your brain to be able to establish more connections in relation to what is being read. Just reading will not make you memorize or retain anything, when you create a method to think about it, it is much simpler to keep what you have learned in the medium and long term. Find your way to chat with the books, either underlining, using highlighters or simply making that timid pencil note in the corner of the pages.

6 – Ask questions

During your reading, it is very healthy to keep asking questions about everything, from the reason that led the author to choose the topic in question, to whether that text would make sense in the real context. When you ask a question about something, you are creating links in your brain so that you can remember what has been learned. The brain is nothing more than a network that makes a series of connections, in order to allow the expansion of what we know.

The next step is to seek answers to all these questions that the reading raised in your heart. The internet is an incredible tool to associate with your readings, as it allows you to investigate everything that is not yet known and solve the most intricate puzzles that readings can offer. Stopping your reading for a while to be aware of the meaning of a word or quote is quite valid.

7 – Have a notebook

Throughout this article, I have mentioned a few times that just reading will not make you retain the knowledge contained in the pages of books on the most varied topics. Having processes that allow you to reflect and create links is crucial, and a mechanism that can be of great help in this is to have a notebook. Basically, it is a notebook in which you will write down the most significant passages of your readings, the most important phrases, the ideas that you do not want to be lost, in short, whatever you find interesting.

By putting on paper the ideas that were raised by a book, the reader is bringing to the physical world something that would be stuck only in the subjective universe, without contact with reality. This notebook will also help you to identify the variety of titles you read. In order for your mind to be instigated to go beyond simple reading through reading, an interleaving of genres and types of writing must be maintained.

8 – Use the knowledge obtained in books

Is there any more effective way to learn than putting theory into practice? Certainly not, then, start taking into your daily life what has been learned in the books. With each new book you read, you have the opportunity to become an expert on a new topic, when you have the opportunity, talk to someone you know about it, or even change the perspective of something you did in a way and now you can do it. other.

Have you ever thought that this is your opportunity to learn from authors from different eras and who were inserted in other contexts? People who do not read, learn only through everyday experiences and with the individuals around them, something that can be quite limiting. Keep in direct contact with your notebook and the notes in the corners of the pages, so you can use that knowledge to solve real issues in your life.

Happiness is essential for good personal and professional performance!

9 – Talk to others about your readings

Book clubs are coming back into fashion, but now redesigned and with the possibility of creating online discussion forums. Whether in person at a coffee table or through a chat, establish a dialogue with other readers about the work you are reading or have already read. When a person talks about what he has read, he is much more likely to memorize and store the knowledge he has acquired.

You can even arrange with your closest friends to read the same book, so they can exchange notes and ideas with each other. Another person’s point of view is always useful for us to understand our own bias. Enrich your process of immersing yourself in the knowledge provided by a book, finding the process of other people.

If you liked the tips, leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!