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Too Many Books, Too Little Time? How to Read Smarter, Not Harder
Why So Many of Us Have Unread Books on Our Shelves
Have you ever looked at your bookshelf, stacked with unread books, and wondered why you haven’t gotten to them yet? It’s a familiar sight for many of us. We buy books with the best of intentions, excited about the knowledge we’ll gain, only to let them sit untouched for months or even years.
It’s easy to blame it on time. But is that really the reason?
It’s Not About Time — It’s About How You Read
Everyone can find 15 to 20 minutes a day for something important. The problem isn’t time. It’s how we approach reading nonfiction.
When we were kids, we learned to read everything from start to finish, focusing on each word, making sure we didn’t miss a detail. This works beautifully for fiction, where every word builds the story. But for nonfiction, that method is overkill.
Why Nonfiction Books Don’t Need to Be Read Cover to Cover
Research by Educator Russell Stauffer shows that on the average page of a nonfiction book, only 4 to 11 percent of the text holds the key information. Most of the meaning in nonfiction comes down to about one…
