Should You READ Or LISTEN To A Full Book (Or Its Summary)?

I won’t be talking about fictional books here. If you’re reading this, I’m assuming you mostly read to learn or improve.

First off, congratulate yourself on that! In a world FILLED with mind-numbing distractions, there are fewer and fewer people who endeavor to learn of their own volition.

So, now that we’ve established that you’re someone who enjoys consuming written content in order to learn, allow me to bring you to the question of this article: What is the?best?and?most effective?way to consume said content?

Well, it varies. It DOES change from person to person.

I personally have a theory that the reason why it changes from person to person is just based on each person’s habits. But who knows? This is just my personal theory.

What I will talk about is what I believe can be applied to MOST people. There are always exceptions to the rule.

I’m going to start by sharing my view on the idea of “Can you just read a book’s summary to skip reading the whole book?”

There are a few apps out there that literally only offer book summaries and they’re super popular.

Of course, they are. Why wouldn’t they be?

They promise EXACTLY what everyone wants: speed and ease.

We live in such a fast-paced world that people have even forgotten how important?effectiveness?is.

Because, when you think about it, why would speed or ease ever be more important than effectiveness when it comes to learning?

After all, the whole point of learning is to actually…?learn, right?

If you speed through 50 books in 6 months, people would be quick to congratulate you on such a feat, but what are the odds you actually gained more than 30% of the knowledge of all of those books?

So, if the point was to acquire knowledge from those 50 books, why the hell would you have wanted to read all of them in 6 months? Your brain isn’t going to capture all of that.

Your brain would prefer it if you were patient with it.

But I mentioned 30% of knowledge because I was talking about reading the WHOLE book. If you read the summaries of 50 books? You’ll probably acquire 5–10% of the total available knowledge. Maybe even less, to be honest.

To me, book summaries are great in case I’m not sure whether or not I should buy a book.

That’s right. I use book summaries like movie trailers. To see if the book interests me.

If a book is also not very important to me and I just want to get the gist of it, then a summary would be a good option then as well.

But that’s about it.

If I care about a book and think it can have an impact on my life, then you can be sure I will read the full book. 100% of it.

So… yeah. About summarized books, my opinion is that you’re mostly just massaging your ego and thinking you’re really smart for consuming so many books so quickly. But in reality, you’re just wasting your time and effort and won’t remember much a couple of months later.

Not every shortcut in life is worth taking.

I love it when people complain that books have too many examples to illustrate a point. Why are you complaining about something that’s great?

If you read 5 different examples to illustrate the same point you’re DEFINITELY increasing the odds of remembering that for a long time. Maybe 6 months later you only remember one of the 5 examples, but that one example is enough to remember the whole concept.

With one or no examples (in case it’s a summary), good luck remembering it later on.

Patience usually pays off, and this is no exception. Otherwise, why doesn’t everyone just try to become a doctor, a lawyer, and an engineer all at the same time within 7 years?

Exactly.

You’d end up sucking at all 3 professions and failing a bunch of exams. It’s too much info in too little time for your brain to process and store.

Now, when it comes to whether you should listen or read a book, there is more room for subjectivity.

I’ve had a few clients before who swear they can’t stay focused while reading a book, so they prefer the audio version.

Although I accept it when they tell me this, afterward I also tell them that the reason behind that might be that they’ve destroyed their attention span with constant phone usage. Constant dopamine stimulation from all the pretty apps and notifications can do that.

It’s definitely reversible, but some people don’t want to go through the effort.

But hey, if you really are able to capture a lot of information just by listening, kudos to you. Personally, I can’t always be paying attention to every word. Eventually, my thoughts take me elsewhere.

This happens when reading a book as well, but it’s easier to re-read a page than it is to go back 20 seconds on an audiobook all the time.

But again, it’s up to you.

I will personally always prefer to read because I feel like it sticks better. And also, another thing is that you will complete listening to an audiobook faster than you will read a book. Which, even though might sound like an advantage, I'm not so sure I'd agree with that.

The way I see it, the longer you spend reading a book, the more it will influence you. But don’t get me wrong here, I mean this if you read the book within 1 month. Obviously, if you read a book in 1 year, then you’re not reading it often enough for it to stick to your mind. You SHOULD be reading it every day if possible.

So, in conclusion, I believe reading a book will always be better than listening to one. But I can accept if the experience is different for others.

But what if I told you there’s a better way?

Other than taking notes while you read/listen to a book, the best way to make sure your brain REMEMBERS the important information you’re learning is to?combine?both ways to consume the information.

If you read a chapter from a book, and then listen to the exact same chapter once or twice in the audiobook version, it will stick to your brain much more?effectively!

And it makes all the sense in the world.

You read it and learn the concept. Then you repeat it to yourself in a more effortless way.

If you REALLY have to learn a book, then all you need to do is take a lot of notes while also listening over and over again to the parts you’ve read before.

All of this will make you truly interiorize the book. Almost like you wrote it yourself!

Try it out and see how well it works.

I hope this article may have helped someone out there. Happy readings!

Never stop hustling & never stop dreaming,

- Dez

P.S. I’m a Success Coach and I’d be happy to give you some awesome book recommendations if you think you could use some help! You can check out my official website?https://kaidezen.com/?for more information