{"id":7316,"date":"2016-11-20T18:09:24","date_gmt":"2016-11-20T15:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/?p=7316"},"modified":"2016-11-20T18:09:24","modified_gmt":"2016-11-20T15:09:24","slug":"how-to-recall-an-entire-book-in-5-minutes-or-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/how-to-recall-an-entire-book-in-5-minutes-or-less\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Recall an Entire Book in 5 Minutes or Less"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"How<\/p>\n

H<\/span>ave you ever read a great book, and after only a short period of time could recall just one or two ideas from it? It is very frustrating \u2013 and it happens all the time. But there\u2019s a way to avoid forgetting what you have read and, if you do, instantly refresh it in your mind.<\/p>\n

Reading Goals, Cheated<\/h2>\n

The key to reading effectively is to be fully engaged in what you are reading. Underlining, questioning, taking notes \u2013 these all help \u2013 but there\u2019s one single element that is essential if you want to read effectively: you need to know what your goal is.<\/strong> This is standard advice, and is indeed a good one. But if you want your reading to be truly effective and long-lasting, you need more than simply a goal: you need a very specific and tangible one<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, a book such as Getting Things Done<\/a>. The goal \u201cto get more organized\u201d<\/em>would be good enough \u2013 but just as a generic goal, not as a specific one. A generic goal may be enough to motivate you to start reading a book, but won\u2019t be truly effective by itself to keep you fully involved while reading it. We need something more concrete.<\/p>\n

The problem is that we only know the specifics of a book after actually reading it. So what should we do as we want to set a specific goal beforehand? We cheat.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found that one of the most effective goals to set when reading a book is to commit yourself to create a mind map<\/a> of it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This will serve as a specific goal that you can use for any book. Yes, having a \u201cgeneral-purpose specific goal\u201d certainly feels like cheating, but you won\u2019t believe how effective it is. It will really help boosting your reading comprehension; and the best part is that you\u2019ll have a book summary you can revisit at anytime. Contrary to regular book summaries, due to the specific properties of mind maps, you\u2019ll be able to review it at lightning speed, quite often at a single glance.<\/p>\n

Top 3 Benefits of Mind Mapping a Book<\/h2>\n

1. Boost Comprehension While Reading<\/h3>\n

Being sharply focused on creating such a specific deliverable as a mind map will get you 100% engaged in your reading, guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Moreover, every time you reach for your mind map to add more information, you\u2019ll be looking and recalling what\u2019s already in there. In fact, this constant reinforcement works so well, it usually takes months before you need referring to the mind map again.<\/p>\n

2. Quickly Review the Entire Book Anytime<\/h3>\n

This is when mind mapping really shines when compared to other note-taking techniques. It is absolutely amazing what happens when you look at a mind map months or even years after you created it. It is like rereading the entire book in just a glance.<\/p>\n

When you first read the book using this method, you did it in such an active manner that by just quickly scanning the mind map brings you all the memories from the book \u2013 even the ones you didn\u2019t include in your mind map<\/strong>. In fact, the neural connections formed are so strong that even the emotions you felt at the time often resurface. And with such a personalized and handy summary, you really don\u2019t need more than 5 minutes to review it.<\/p>\n

3. Distill the Real Substance of the Book<\/h3>\n

It is not rare for long books resulting in small mind maps. By creating a mind map, the real content of the book becomes evident. Not everything in a book is straight to the point: authors (validly) use repetition, stories and examples to build and elaborate important points. All you need to do is use standard mind mapping features to reflect that importance: use bold, write your topics in bigger letters or different colors. With your personalized mind map, you\u2019ll be able to trim all fat while keeping the relationships and the relative importance of each topic intact.<\/p>\n

Tips to Get Started<\/h2>\n

Keep the Flow<\/h3>\n

Avoid reading and creating the mind map simultaneously, as that will disrupt your reading flow. Circle, underline and take notes while reading, pre-selecting the important concepts and passages for your summary. This intermediary step not only keeps you in context and engaged in the book, but also makes it much easier to quickly create your mind map once you read the relevant parts of the book. And by doing this, you\u2019ll have yet another content reinforcement in the process.<\/p>\n

Sleep on It<\/h3>\n

Try not to work on your mind map right after reading the book \u2013 let your mind chew on what you have read for a while first. Doing it the next day is a good rule of thumb. If you read every day, a good way of doing it is by working on your mind map for yesterday\u2019s topic right before today\u2019s reading session. Also, try not to get your reading too far ahead of your mind mapping \u2013 you\u2019ll lose the benefits of repetitive reinforcement and feel overwhelmed if there\u2019s too much content to add in a single sit.<\/p>\n

Use Dual Bookmarking<\/h3>\n

Instead of using just one bookmark, use an extra one to indicate up to where your book has been mapped. I also recommend using colored Post-it flags<\/a>, so you won\u2019t need to worry about your second bookmark falling while you\u2019re reading.<\/p>\n

Try It<\/h2>\n

Won\u2019t reading books with this method take much longer than usual? Sure it will \u2013 but what\u2019s the point in leafing through several books, only retaining a tiny amount of their content \u2013 and only for a short period of time?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever read a great book, and after only a short period of time could recall just one or two ideas from it? It is very frustrating \u2013 and it happens all the time. But there\u2019s a way to avoid forgetting what you have read and, if you do, instantly refresh it in your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[456,427],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-456","category-427","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7317,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7316\/revisions\/7317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}