How to read a book the 80/20 way

One of the mental constraints I have when I learn something new is that I can’t get into the details before I get an overview.

When I go into the details wihout an overview I may understand them but I don’t feel like I have remembered anything. The details dont have a place to hang in.

I have developed a system of quickly gathering an overview of any book I read. Then I get into the most relevant details of of the areas I need to learn and then I get into other chapters.

How to get an overview

1. Read the introduction.
2. Read the conclusion at the end of the book.
3. Read the summaries/salient points at the end of every chapter.

By the end of this you get a pretty good overview of what is in the book. If the summaries are well written then you will have a pretty good idea of the important ideas covered in the book.

As you go through this process you may find yourself redoing the steps mentioned a couple of times but that should be fine.

Most recently I have done this with “Thinking slow and fast”. Let me know your experience of trying this with any books you read.

Ravikanth Andhavarapu assesses whether an organization's data can prove what it actually did. What that involves · ravi@helloravi.com