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You Don't Always Have to Read the Whole Book

One common trait that many successful people share is that they are avid learners. That is how they get to the top of their field; they continue learning more and more until they become experts.

A couple of months ago, I happened to tune in to CSPAN while Donald Trump was giving testimony to congress regarding the construction project for the new U.N. building.

Normally, I would have just switched the channel right away, but this was the Donald, and I was curious to see what he had to say. It was fascinating.

Trump was tearing apart the U.N.'s proposed construction plan for their new building, claiming that it would cost billions (that's billions with a B) more than necessary because of the ineptness of their planning.

What impressed me most was just how much Trump really knows about the construction and real estate business, and how articulately he explained all the problems with the U.N. plan to congress. He is most certainly an expert, and it's no accident that he is a billionaire.

One way to learn and gain expertise is by reading books. Brian Tracy says that by reading 15 minutes a day, you can become an expert in your field in just a few years, much faster than if you just tried learning from your own mistakes through trial and error.

Reading is almost never enough to make you a real expert though, you also need to get your hands dirty and gain experience by actually doing the work and learning from your mistakes and failures. However, reading can help speed up the process considerably.

Assuming that you do want to read more books in your field to gain knowledge and expertise, here is a simple productivity tip: you don't always have to read the entire book from cover to cover.

The 80/20 rule says that for most non-fiction books, 80 percent of the value or benefit of the book is contained in only 20 percent of the content. You can apply the same principle to the remaining content to realize that you'll find almost all of the value in less than half the pages of the book.

The problem is that you won't know ahead of time which pages have the real value, and which ones don't. This week's productivity tip provides some simple ideas to help you identify the most valuable parts of the book so you can concentrate on those parts, and just skim the rest.

How to Identify the Most Valuable Parts of the Book

One suggestion is to read the table of contents and skim through the book quickly before you start reading it. This will help you identify the chapters and sections that are most relevant for you.

As you go, make a note of topics that look interesting or valuable. You can do this by attaching Post-It notes to the pages that look the most promising, or you can make small markings on the margins.

This alone can help you eliminate 10 to 50% of the book that is not relevant, and at the same time identify the most important topics that you are interested in.

You can also apply a similar technique to each chapter in the book. Start by previewing the main section and sub-section headings, and looking at the various diagrams, illustrations, and notes that may be present. Just skim the content while you preview the chapter.

This will give you an overall idea of what the chapter is about, and which sections you should really focus on.

As you read each chapter, pay close attention to the areas that you identified as being valuable, and feel free to skip ahead if you get into a section that doesn't seem useful.

Obviously, you wouldn't want to do this for a novel or a book you are reading just for fun. I also wouldn't recommend it for study materials, since you never know if your definition of relevant material agrees with that of your professor!

"What if I miss something important?" It is possible that you might miss a golden nugget here or there, but it's unlikely since you previewed each chapter twice ahead of time.

In my mind, it's much better to risk missing a couple of golden nuggets and read a good number of books, than to spend a whole year reading just a single book cover to cover because you keep loosing interest and motivation.

Don't feel guilty about not reading the whole thing either. Just think about how much time you would waste by reading the useless parts of the book.

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