“Booking Time off For Books: Reading for Relaxation or Redirection.”

Why is it so important to read?

Reading is important because it develops the mind.  The mind is a muscle.  It needs exercise. It’s good for you and it is the foundation to success.

In his book “Deep Work” author Carl Newport writes “to remain valuable in our economy you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things.  This requires deep work.  Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task to produce better results in less time.” Deep work is a great descriptor of the Intensive Reading technique.  According to the writers at PlanetSpark there are three other reading techniques, each with a different use.

Different Types of Reading Techniques:

• Skimming or gist reading: The reader goes through the main themes or the core text the way we do when reading magazines or newspaper.
• Scanning: The reader scuttles across sentences in search of a particular piece of information, ignoring or rejecting irrelevant information.
• Intensive Reading: This type of reading is far more time consuming that the first two types listed. This type of reading aims at the accuracy of comprehension by reading for understanding. Classroom reading.
• Extensive Reading: The reader focuses more on fluency and less on accuracy. Reading for pleasure.

How To Book Time for Books:

Trade wasted time on your phone for flipped pages in bed, on a train or in an uber, during meal breaks and while waiting in line. Rekindle the love of the smell of a freshly printed magazine or that library smell from the dust covers of an old book.  Or, if you are fortunate enough set up a quiet reading space in your home or garden, with decent lighting, where only books may enter so that you can once again experience the “feel” of a book in your hands.

Reading Resources:

• Mainstream bookstores such as Exclusive Books, Fogarty’s, and CAN
• The local library in your town or city, or the second-hand book exchange on the corner
• Book Clubs and Community Groups
• Audible, Scribd, Blinkist, Kindle, Amazon, Google Play Books and Apple Books for ePubs and eBooks

Top Ten Reading List (March/April 2022)::

1. Women Who Run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
2. The Book of Two Ways by Jody Picoult
3. Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
4. Soulbattical by Shelley Paterson
5. In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honoré
6. Atomic Habits by James Clear
7. Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter
8. The Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma
9. The 5AM Club – Robin Sharma
10. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy