Tony Dye

How To Read A Book

I love reading.  Trisha and I have talked, half-seriously, about taking a vacation where we just go "somewhere" with a bunch of books and spend days catching up on our reading list.  I'm fairly regularly re-prioritizing my "what I'll read next" list, and always adding new things to it.  (you'd think I'd know better!)

As much as I love reading, I'm not all that good at remembering what I've read.  Now that's a problem!  So, I'm setting out to learn to read better and improve my comprehension and retention.  How can I do that?  By reading a book, of course!

How To Read A Book (revised), by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, is my new reference for reading.  This is not necessarily and easy book, and ironically, it's not yet one of my favorite books.  The concept, over-simplified, is that reading a book takes planning, and effort, and even note-taking.  The authors are in favor of things I like to do: underlining, circling, notes in margins, etc.  (Not a good idea for library books)  I'm not sure they say this directly, but using post-it notes and pages fits the concept as well.

Just to give an idea of what the authors expect, here's the list of rules for the first stage of analytical reading (from p95):

1. Classify the book according to kind and subject matter
2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity
3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole
4. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve

That might sound a bit dry.  This is NOT a boring book.  It is a challenging book.  So, if my goal is to improve my comprehension and retention, how do I know if I've succeeded?

What Are Your Problems?

Solve your own problem!

When you've got a problem (especially with technology), how do you solve it?  When you find a product or solution from a third party, that can be great, but when you solve it yourself, then you're involved..even committed.

That's exactly what's said in chapter 2 of Getting Real, "What's Your Problem?"

"When you solve your own problem, you create a tool that you're passionate about. And passion is key. Passion means you'll truly use it and care about it. And that's the best way to get others to feel passionate about it too."

Getting Real is quickly becoming one of The Best Books I Ever Read, well, except that I've hardly started it.  Nearly every page hits me with a "blinding flash of the obvious "(Tom Peters) and I quickly reference it and send emails off to a half-dozen people.

Are you passionate about solutions you find, or create?  Is it possible to be that fully involved with everything you do?  That's sure where I want to be with ProVision CRM!

Take Back Your Life

I'm only about half way through this book so far, but it's quickly moving into my "favorite book" category.  If you're a David Allen Getting Things Done fan, then you'll probably recognize a lot of familiar concepts.  Actually, the very first thing I did when I received this book was to look up David Allen in the index.  There was exactly one reference, page 82.  I scoured that page and missed it.  Finally I realized there was a quote in the margin.  That was the only reference.  So, having not said anything either way about David Allen, I was "stuck" having to actually read the book.

I skimmed the contents, then flipped to the Acknowledgments page.  Normally I move past the acknowledgments pretty quickly,  but for some reason I chose to read it a bit more thoroughly.  The second paragraph was quite revealing.  Sally McGhee, the author, gave special thanks to Russell Bishop.  Who?  Well, it seems that he had a company named the Productivity Development Group (PDG) and that both Sally McGhee and David Allen were partners there!  Well...that's an interesting connection.

Early in the Introduction the book references "three simple ingredients."  Here's my very liberal paraphrase:
1) You (the reader) are looking to make a change
OK, I'm for that.  Reducing stress, getting organized, dealing with "overwhelm."  I want to change all those things for sure.

2) She (Sally McGhee) has a set of methods that will help you get life under control
Well, that's a good assumption, but I want to see it.  I'm very willing to accept some good methods!

3) Microsoft Outlook is the best tool available for organizing your life
Wait a minute.  Outlook is the best tool?  I've got a problem here.  I mean, yeah, sure, I use it all day long, but the best?  There are much better tools for really managing your life.  I mean, there's...oh wait, they're out of business.  But there's still...oh yeah, they're still in business, but they don't do a Personal Information Manager any more.  And..oh yeah, them too.  So wait, I misread the sentence.  I thought the focus was on Outlook being the best tool available.  No, the focus is on Outlook being the best tool available!  Yes...this does make sense.

Well...there really is a point to this post, and it's not to convince you to go buy this book, although that's not a bad idea.  I'm determined to work through most of the principles in this book and I plan to use Outlook as the tool.  My question: is there today a better tool than Outlook?  Let me qualify that just slightly.  The tool has to work in Windows, it has to be available without a continuous Internet connection (has to work when you're on an airplane) and has to be affordable.

Any great suggestions?  Or...is Outlook the best tool available?

Dr. Daniel Amen

Dr. Amen is a very interesting author.  He's done some fasicnaiting imaging studies of the brain and I've enjoyed pretty much every book he's ever written.  Well, he's got a new one, Sex on the Brain.  Hmmm...I'm not sure I'd want to let anybody know I was reading it! Of course, I could always tell my wife that we need to help with some scientific research :-)

Cheating

This is the first year, in quite a few, that I didn't attend the Leadership Summit.  However, I've seen and heard so many reports regarding Any Stanley's talk on Choosing to Cheat that I had to check it out.  I'm hooked!  So, I'm ordering the Summit DVD set, and the book, but I wanted to get a faster start.  Well, that's easy enough -- Andy did a sermon based on the book which can be downloaded from Northpoint's webstore!  $3 and 45MB later, I'm listening.  It nailed me -- I've got to make some changes.

The Best Book I Ever Read

I like to read, and were it not for the other necessities of life, I'd probably spend many hours a day devouring all sorts of books. 

Due to some combination of "easily enthralled" and "short memory," I often find myself commenting about how my most recent book* is The Best Book I Ever Read.  Now, I know that can't really be true.  So, when you hear me talk about a "best" book, just know that probably means it's what I've just finished.  I really do believe, for the moment, it's the best book I've ever read!

Recent favorites:
The World is Flat
A Whole New Mind
Boundaries
Raving Fans
In Search of God Knows What
Simply Strategic Growth
A New Kind of Christian
The Story We Find Ourselves In
Healing the Hardware of the Soul
Every Man, God's Man

* I should mention that I start a lot more books than I finish.  If a book hasn't grabbed my attention pretty quickly, it goes on the shelf and may never get another look.  Occasionally I'll retrieve one of those books and try again.  For instance, This Present Darkness is one of the very few that went from "not interested" to "wow" on the second attempt.