#60 Implementation implementation implementation

One of the most useful things I’ve seen on social media in the past week is a clip of a guy (Vinh Giang, a keynote speaker) talking about how he reads non-fiction books. After completing a chapter, he writes down one thing he will implement as a result of that chapter and gives himself one week to take that action.

We are all aware that we learn better when we incorporate doing as part of the process, for example, doing the end-of-chapter exercises when we were learning topics in maths classes to reinforce our learning.

Yet, do we do this as adults?

I spend a lot of time in airports and on planes, and I am used to seeing people reading daily, but I very rarely see people making notes in their books.

Just one takeaway from a chapter doesn’t seem like much, but it can be enough to significantly increase the value we get from consuming content.

Implementation idea

A key concept in productivity is ‘leverage’; maximising the value you can extract from your inputs and skills.

If you’re dedicating time to reading a book, listening to a podcast, watching a YouTube video, etc, for just a small increase in time and cognitive effort, you can dramatically increase the value you can extract from that activity.

Answer these two questions upon completion:

1. What was the key information I learnt?

2. How can I implement this learning into my life?

From the archives

For the past few months, I have been seeing significant benefits from making notes in a doc on my laptop while reading the news and writing in non-fiction books. Here is a reminder of a few posts from the archive where I cover the science:

• The vital role of action (link)

• Writing notes whilst you read (link)

• Reading non-fiction books in physical form (link)

Best, Alex Joshi.

On my bedside table:

• Podcast: The Diary of a CEO: Dr Lierberman on our modern lifestyles and the evolution of the human body (link)

• Article: How Boeing’s troubles are upsetting the balance of power in aviation, Financial Times (link)

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