How Should I Manage My Reading?

00:00:00.000 | [ Music ]

00:00:05.020 | All right, I think we have time for one more question here.

00:00:08.900 | This one comes from Brian.

00:00:11.660 | Brian says, "I'm seeking a pragmatic strategy for keeping track of things to be read

00:00:20.260 | and a process for implementation.

00:00:21.840 | I have shelves of print books awaiting my good intentions as well

00:00:25.600 | as multiple folders containing hundreds of articles, papers, reports,

00:00:29.380 | and other digital content that I really want to read.

00:00:31.300 | I could use help thinking about how to organize this.

00:00:34.140 | Any advice on an effective systematic method for capturing, storing,

00:00:37.400 | and prioritizing all the various things to be read that are in both digital and physical formats,

00:00:42.520 | not to mention many great conference talks that I receive via streaming services?"

00:00:45.400 | Brian, I'm exhausted just listening to your question here.

00:00:48.260 | There is a near infinite amount of material that you could consume in the world,

00:00:56.620 | and it is more accessible than it's ever been.

00:00:59.580 | Well, that's good and bad.

00:01:01.260 | It's good because it means that if there's something you want to master,

00:01:03.820 | you actually have access to more information on whatever that is,

00:01:06.600 | and you probably would have had it any other time in history.

00:01:09.080 | It's bad because you can drown.

00:01:11.240 | It's just too much stuff.

00:01:13.440 | So I think you are setting yourself up for frustration when you are trying to put

00:01:20.640 | in place these generic capture systems for any and all forms of interesting information.

00:01:27.320 | It will always be too much.

00:01:28.580 | You will always feel behind.

00:01:30.160 | You have created a necessary stress generation machine.

00:01:34.360 | So what should you do instead?

00:01:36.780 | Well, here's my approach to the information consumption.

00:01:40.000 | So adjust as needed for your situation.

00:01:43.720 | When it comes to books, as is known, I have a number of books I try to read each month.

00:01:50.240 | For me, it's five, but that number could be different for you.

00:01:53.920 | That creates a background rhythm of long form interaction with content.

00:02:00.700 | It also naturally engenders a diversity of different types of books.

00:02:06.360 | So you might have a longer book you're listening to when time gets short at the

00:02:09.600 | end of the month, sometimes I'll switch over to a shorter book and you end up

00:02:12.640 | with a real variety of different types of books.

00:02:14.400 | All right.

00:02:14.580 | So that's how I handle books.

00:02:15.780 | If I'm reading five a month, I'm being exposed to a lot of ideas.

00:02:19.200 | That's enough.

00:02:20.240 | I don't think about all of the books I could read.

00:02:22.780 | I don't make lists of all the books I want to read.

00:02:24.420 | That'd be too frustrating.

00:02:25.220 | I basically say, okay, I've finished one.

00:02:27.180 | What's next.

00:02:27.780 | Now let's think about things like articles.

00:02:30.980 | You know, as a computer scientist and a writer, I have to draw from articles.

00:02:36.680 | My, my computer science papers have to draw from existing academic papers,

00:02:40.460 | from writing a book chapter or a New Yorker piece, I'm probably going to

00:02:43.880 | have to pull from other types of papers, other types of things I've encountered.

00:02:47.920 | There, my strategy has always been a project based pull approach,

00:02:53.560 | the content assumption, consumption.

00:02:56.140 | So project based.

00:02:57.900 | So P B P A C C that's, that's the really natural acronym I want to see.

00:03:05.340 | But what I mean by that is I allow a specific project that I'm committed

00:03:09.740 | to do and is already important.

00:03:11.300 | Be the thing that pulls information into my world.

00:03:14.340 | I think it's a much more consistent way to do it.

00:03:17.660 | So if I am writing an article on trees in, I don't know, the rainforest

00:03:25.480 | or something like that, let that deadline and my need to read that

00:03:29.040 | article, push me to go out there and very quickly find a bunch of good

00:03:32.200 | articles on trees and read those things as quickly as possible and talk to

00:03:35.180 | some experts and learn a lot about trees that deadline, the commitment

00:03:39.040 | drew that into my life, as opposed to.

00:03:42.740 | I'm just walking around one day and saying, I might like to read about trees.

00:03:46.120 | Let me put in a folder somewhere, trees as a topic and have some sort of

00:03:49.900 | elaborate system that bubbles that up.

00:03:51.520 | I want the projects to dictate it.

00:03:53.260 | I do the same with my academic work.

00:03:54.700 | Hey, I like, I want to write a paper on this.

00:03:57.500 | I heard someone give a talk on it and I think I could do something here

00:04:00.420 | that motivates me to read the related work.

00:04:02.860 | That's how I read related work.

00:04:04.500 | When I'm trying to support a particular push towards a new result on my own.

00:04:08.660 | This just hacks the motivational system in a very effective way.

00:04:13.780 | It's much easier to motivate, to grab and read things when you need

00:04:16.960 | it for something you're working on.

00:04:17.980 | You're going to cover a lot more material and to it, put some structure.

00:04:21.180 | This gives some structure to all the information out there.

00:04:23.920 | The reason why I'm reading about trees is because I'm

00:04:26.660 | writing an article about trees.

00:04:28.180 | It gives you some clarity about what you should or shouldn't

00:04:30.360 | be writing about or reading.

00:04:32.580 | I should say.

00:04:32.920 | And then the final aspect of my system is serendipity.

00:04:35.580 | You know, how do you come across ideas you never, never would have

00:04:40.020 | known about, but might down the line generate new things.

00:04:43.160 | Spark creativity, lead to a new article.

00:04:45.460 | How did you find out that trees are interesting in the first place?

00:04:47.620 | Have a limited number of interesting, high quality, diverse, incoming

00:04:52.180 | information channels that you expose yourself to on a regular basis.

00:04:55.020 | And let that be your entire serendipity engine.

00:04:57.080 | I live in Washington, DC, for example.

00:05:00.720 | So I subscribe to the paper version of the Washington Post,

00:05:04.120 | a great serendipity machine.

00:05:06.520 | If you're on the internet, it's all algorithmically selected

00:05:10.960 | articles to press the buttons that you're already interested in.

00:05:13.760 | The paper doesn't have any algorithms.

00:05:15.480 | The things that are on the front page are on the front page.

00:05:17.500 | And the things on the front page of the Metro section of the

00:05:20.300 | front page of the Metro section.

00:05:21.460 | It's not selected for you.

00:05:23.040 | It's not more of what you already like.

00:05:24.820 | And so I get exposed to a lot of interesting news locally, internationally.

00:05:29.060 | That's a good engine.

00:05:29.800 | Podcasts are another great engine.

00:05:31.980 | You have a few podcasts you listen to that just cover interesting topics.

00:05:35.500 | I mean, I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that do this

00:05:38.940 | with the podcast, 99% invisible, a lot of people do this with Planet Money.

00:05:45.040 | There's a lot of podcasts like this that cover a diversity of topics.

00:05:49.000 | And just, okay, I have one or two of these things I listened to, and it

00:05:51.340 | exposes you to a lot of interesting, a lot of interesting ideas.

00:05:55.140 | I got a note from a lot of readers, for example, that I was referenced

00:06:00.520 | in a recent Planet Money episode, which I think just underscores that

00:06:03.160 | that is a incredibly high quality source of very important

00:06:06.080 | things you should know about.

00:06:06.840 | All right.

00:06:07.940 | So that's my system.

00:06:08.860 | Have a set number of books you read, do that.

00:06:10.700 | You're good.

00:06:11.080 | For articles and other types of things, let specific projects that

00:06:15.260 | you're committed to be the thing that draws in what you're going to read

00:06:18.800 | into your life and when it comes to serendipity, fix some high quality

00:06:23.620 | serendipity channels and just expose yourself to those, do those things.

00:06:27.320 | You'll be fine.

00:06:27.860 | There's no reason to have an elaborate system where you have a

00:06:30.060 | thousand books you one day want to read.

00:06:31.500 | There's no reason to have these folders of different types of article types

00:06:36.060 | that you're going to sort through and take one out once a week.

00:06:38.460 | You're never going to do any of that.

00:06:39.740 | That system's going to frustrate you.

00:06:41.260 | So do something like my plan.

00:06:42.780 | And I think you're going to be, have all the information you need without

00:06:47.540 | feeling like you're always falling short.

00:06:50.340 | [music]

How Should I Manage My Reading?

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