New books are being published left and right, but you’re crazy busy. How can you read more faster and improve your productivity?
In my first reading seminar as a ThM student, my professor assigned 700 pages in the first week and a 10-page reading report. The average reading per week was around 450 pages, and I was taking a full load. I had no idea where to start or how I would finish half of it.
If you’re a pastor, you have another challenge. Every day new books stream off the presses, books you’re expected to keep up with. But you already work 50 hours a week doing administration, sermon prep, required finance, counseling, visitation, prayer, personal Bible study, and who knows what else. There’s no way you can keep up.
Among the never-ending stream of new books and huge reading assignments, here are three ways to read more faster.
1. Map the terrain.
Get the big picture: what is this book about? Who are the author’s conversation partners (i.e., other books interacted with)? How is it organized? The first thing to do should be to simply study the table of contents. Don’t start reading chapter one without knowing what it’s about and where the book as a whole is going.
If you can fit each chapter into the wider picture, you can read it faster and comprehend the author’s direction better. Sometimes, you’ll find you don’t need to read a chapter and can simply skim it.
In my reading seminar, my first book was Rainer Riesner’s magisterial Paul’s Early Period. I started on page 1 without even bothering to map the terrain. I was absolutely lost, and was only beginning to figure things out on p. 200, when I ran out of time to read for the week. Had I even looked at the table of contents, I would have understood why I was reading about numismatic evidence from Judea and why it mattered for Pauline chronology…and then I probably would have skimmed it quickly to get to the second part of the book.
2. Look for authorial helps.
As you begin reading each chapter, flip through the entire chapter first. Look for headings and sub-headings: what topics are discussed and in what order? Does the author include an introduction and conclusion? If so, read both first. Often the author is kind enough to summarize the contents of the chapter in the conclusion.
Of course, don’t use this tip to skip reading altogether, but use it to read smarter. Sometimes you do not need to read an entire chapter thoroughly; it might be familiar terrain, covering the same evidence you’ve seen discussed fifteen times before. If so, look for his conclusions and his main arguments, with which you’re probably familiar. Don’t waste your time reading something that will be of minimal value to you.
Three ways to read more faster so you can improve your productivity Click To Tweet3. Read book reviews.
Often, books aren’t worth reading. So many books published today cover the same ground with only slightly different twists on their interpretation of the available evidence. The law of diminishing returns looms large here.
Reading book reviews from journals and blogs are a good way to keep up with new books without having to read them all. And many more reputable PhD students and scholars are blogging nowadays, which makes finding reliable online book reviews even easier.
We publish 1-2 book reviews a week, so to keep up, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and subscribe to our newsletter. But don’t stop with us, sign up for the other good blogs too. You can also try services such as Books At a Glance, which for a small subscription fee gives you access to lengthy book summaries (~3,000-6,000 words) of new books that come out, which helps you read the substance of new books to decide if you want to purchase and read the entire book.
What else?
There are a lot more tips to help people read more faster. If you have some helpful tips, comment below for everyone to see.
