"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 - and it happens all the time. But there’s a way to avoid forgetting what you have read and, if you do, instantly refresh it in your mind.
Reading Goals, Cheated
The key to reading effectively is to be fully engaged in what you are reading. Underlining, questioning, taking notes – these all help – but there’s one single element that is essential if you want to read effectively: you need to know what your goal is. 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.
Take, for example, a book such as Getting Things Done. The goal “to get more organized” would be good enough - 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’t be truly effective by itself to keep you fully involved while reading it. We need something more concrete."
By Luciano Passuello
