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By Bob Scheinfeld
I
was on a plane 2 weeks ago flying to Santa Barbara,
California to attend a meeting and visit my
father. I was sitting in my seat reading a book
and jotting some notes when I noticed the guy
next to me looking at me strangely.
"Can
I help you?" I asked him.
"I
noticed you marking up the first page of your
book and wondered what you were doing,"
he said.
I
then explained a book reading technique I've
been using for years which he found extremely
valuable. His feedback prompted me to decide
to share it with you.
Here
it is ...
Often
times, when I'm reading books, I want to mark
out a quote, a reference, a paragraph of text
or an illustration because I think the content
is valuable. So I underline it (somehow people
use yellow highlighters, especially in school).
Do
you do that?
Well
that's great, but the problem is, if you want
to find the marked out quote, text, reference
or illustration later, you can't do it easily.
You may remember you marked it out somewhere,
but you have to go paging through the book again
looking for it.
So
one day, years ago, when I was in college and
first noticed this problem, I decided to mark
out the quote, text or illustrations and then
go to the first page of the book (after the
inside cover) a page that's usually blank, and
make a note of the page number and a short description
of the topic(s) I marked out on it.
Then,
whenever I want to find a particular quote,
reference, illustration, etc., I just flip to
the inside cover, look at my notes and I can
get there quickly and easily.
I
do this all the time now and have for years.
I love it! It's so simple. Very quick. And it's
a major productivity enhancer when you get into
the habit of doing it.
Try
it!
