How To Read A Book

Great cast

Guys-

Great cast. Sometimes the subjects really go above and beyond, and I believe this was one of them. Thanks!

Tom

Book Mentioned on Operations

Guys-

You always seem to have an endless stream of great ideas for casts that eerily match up with questions floating around in my head. Thanks so much for this great service. It is beyond invaluable to me.

Mark-

You mentioned a book on Operations and Engineering during this cast. I couldn't catch the title. Would you be able to repeat it please?

Phil

So do you prefer physical books to e-books?

Mark - Have you switched primarily to e-books?

You've shared you are an avid reader and take notes all through books.  In other casts you shared you use the Kindle app which is particularly helpful in your travels.

Thank you for continued great, actionable casts.

Steve

DiSC 2-5-4-6

eBooks vs Dead Tree

Personally (if I might answer the question SBALENO directed to Mark for myself, I'd be interested in Mark's answer as well),  I think it depends on the book and situation.  Books I'm going to refer back to (the How-to type books that I'm going to go back to to get the information I need to complete a task and I don't need to lug back and forth to work each day) I prefer paper editions as often I'm flicking back and forth from page to page and looking at diagrams which is possible with ebooks but not as easy.  Books I'm going to read through picking up information that I then integrate and use but I'm not likely to be refering back to whilst performing a task, my Kindle wins hands down.  A big part of this is that I do must of that sort of reading whilst commuting so something that fits into my backpack and I can comfortably hold is ideal.  I also like the fact that I can have the same book on my Kindle and on my home and work PCs and that when I switch from one to the other it will sync up and open at the page I was last reading.  Finally I like that on those journeys where I'm just too brain fried from the day to really take anything in, or need to let the serious stuff marinade in my unconscious for a while before I dive back in,  with a few button clicks I can pull up something light and fluffy that's not taxing but will absorb my attention for the duration of the journey.

Stephen

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Skype: stephenbooth_uk  | DiSC: 6137

"Start with the customer and work backwards, not with the tools and work forwards" - James Womack

E-Books, Totally

We try very hard to not make recommendations based upon what we do personally, but rather what we have seen work with hundreds, if not thousands of managers and professionals over the years.

That said, I know folks want to know what I do.  So:

I am TOTALLY an e-book person.  I have hundreds of books on my Ipad, with Kindle software.

this is not to say it's better for everyone...but for years I had bruises and SCARS on my collarbone and shoulders from lugging a heavy briefcase while traveling with 2-3-4-5 hardbacks and softbacks in it.

You might wonder about the hardbacks...but clients wanted to know what I thought, and before e-books, paperbacks came out, especially years ago, many, many, many months after hardbacks.

I actually bought a different shoulder strap for my coveted hartmann briefcase, with some elastic in it, for this reason.

No more.  They're all - ALL - on my ipad (again, with Kindle).

I THOUGHT at the time that I would miss the physical feel of turning pages.  But I don't.  I don't fault people who do miss it, and therefore stick with physical copies...but I feel no sorrow for them when they have to travel with the weight and size of actual books. 

And, look, I am able to get ANY book, and search for ANY text, in 10 seconds.  ANY BOOK.  I'VE EVER READ.  TEN SECONDS. 

Sorry, but there's no amount of physicality that trumps THAT.

Regarding notes: I do take less...but I either write them in my notebook, or, I dictate them to my phone.  And, frankly, hundreds of my old notes were illegible, or I never got back to them.  And now, I can highlight them..though I do NOT like reading a book where Amazon kindly puts OTHERS' highlights into MY copy.  They focus on the wrong things, I can tell you.  ;-)

I miss my books, a little.  But life isn't about things.  It's about people, and ideas.

And, I think Mike just bought me a first edition, first printing, SIGNED copy of John Brown's Body.

Sigh.  Heaven on earth.

Because still used to just being men, and not block parts.

Mark

 I'm a little late catching

 I'm a little late catching up to podcasts (my wife had the baby) but I did want to respond to some of the things in it.

I may be the first, but I DO go back through my books after reading it. As I read, I highlight important points and write in the margins a summary. If it is something actionable, I write it in the front of the book. If it is an exercise, I put an "E" and if a really good point, I put a sticky there. At the end, I enter all my handwritten notes with page number into an Excel spreadsheet, and save a column for the "E" or "*" (sticky - good point). I've been doing this for about 6 years (with about 47 books) after reading a book called The Little Guide to the Well Read Life (I think) by Steven Levine. The result is that I know my books very well - and I think that almost every book I read is very, very good.

I now try to use Evernote to hold all my good material - whenever I find good articles or something, I put the clips into Evernote with tags. For my book indexes, I now copy the Excel file into Evernote too. I add tags to the overall note, and I also add tags within the spreadsheet.  I keep a separate note of actionable ideas I want to try to implement. 

So I recently downloaded the Kindle App on my Droid and I am trying to figure out the best way to go about it. It's convenient to be able to read anywhere. I was reading a library copy of Tribal Leadership while someone else was driving and I said, "this is a good book, I want to mark it up." I pulled out my Droid, downloaded it, and wala, could highlight now. Summarizing all my highlights into an Excel spreadsheet took longer than the paper books. I highlighted 7 Habits and Secrets of Power Negotiating even more, and it would take too long. What I like about the Kindle app books is I can read anywhere. For example, if a meeting is starting late, I'm stick in line, etc, I can whip out my Droid and read more of my Kindle book. And I like the Kindle for being able to search. But when it comes to going back to a book to find something or show someone something, I really like the paper version. I hate that my paper version of 7 Habits is mostly clean -- I wish it was highlighted and had all the stickies so I could find things.

The best way I have found to get the ideas to stick is to talk about the books I read and post reviews on them. I've been meaning to post a review of Tribal Leadership here.

I was glad to hear the quote about being the same in 5 years other than the books one has read and the people one has met. I meet a lot of people who think reading books is useless, particularly at my job. I've had one person that seriously doubts any of my success was related to books, and scoffs me for recommending books to others.

I haven't posted on the board in a while about my job and such and maybe I should let me people know what's been going on.

The Goal - Eli Goldratt

I may have found the answer to the question I posted above about what operations book Mark mentioned during this cast.

Browsing a discount bookstore recently I found The Goal by Eli Goldratt. I believe this matches with some of the other clues during the cast. I just couldn't make out the exact title/author after replaying the cast a few times.

I have started reading this and I'm having trouble putting it down.

Thanks for this recommendation, Mark!

Phil