What Happens After You Read a Book?
Once you’ve read a book, what do you do with it?
Do you put it back on the shelf? Sell it on Amazon? Donate it to the library? Give it to a friend? Throw it out?
I’d love to hear what you do (and your reasons for it) in the comments. I might use your feedback in a future best practices post.
(Photo by Arria Belli.)
A Trick for Reading More Books
Here’s a simple way to read more often: separate your books by whether or not you’ve read them yet.
Making a decision — what in the fridge you want to eat, what book on the shelf you want to read — takes up a certain amount of mental energy. The easier a decision, the less mental energy it requires.
Consider what happens when you approach your bookshelf for new material. There are a lot of unread books; if you really stop and do the math, at your current pace it may take you two lifetimes to finish them all. This sense of overwhelm immediately makes a seemingly simple task — pick a book — difficult. Whatever book you pick now may mean another book never gets read at all. What if you pick wrong?
Then, as your eyes dart from spine to spine, you have to determine which books you’ve read and which ones you haven’t. You have to re-decide each and every time if that book you read in sixth grade counts as “read” or if you should read it again. Sometimes you have to stop and try to remember if you ever read certain books at all.
It’s no wonder that you frequently give up and go back to your computer, or stop paying attention to the bookshelf altogether. You’re making it harder on yourself than it needs to be.
If you’re not quite convinced, try it for a month and see. (You can always change it back.) It’s still a good idea to keep fiction and non-fiction separate; but within those two sections, divide the books into two distinct sections: books you’ve already read, and books you want to read. Organize each section per usual (i.e. fiction books alphabetically by author’s last name, then by title).
If possible, put the unread books at eye level and use lower (or hard-to-reach) shelves for the already-consumed books.
The next time you’re inclined to read a book, you’ll have a smaller selection to choose from, lessening the sense of overwhelm and minimizing the amount of deliberation you have to go through. If you really want to go nuts, choose your next book randomly.
Action Item:
Create a separate section for books that you haven’t read yet, ideally at eye level.
(Photo by davidsilver.)
How to Choose a Book to Read
If you’re anything like me, choosing which book to read next out of all the available options can be a very daunting task.
Going alphabetically seems like the best way to work your way down the shelf, until you get to D and realize that will be a good two years until you can read anything other than Charles Dickens. As enjoyable as Dickens may be, reading the same author each and every day can make even your favorite novel read like the dictionary.
Instead, choose your next book at random using the random number generator.
Here’s how it works: Count the number of unread books you have. (This will be a lot easier if you separate read and unread books.) If you already have an idea of what kind of book you want to read — namely fiction or non-fiction — then only count the number of unread books in that section. Jot this number on a Post-It note and affix it to your bookshelf for future reference.
Fill in the random number generator form as follows, replacing “278″ with the number of unread books you have, and click the “Get Numbers” button.
It will return one random number from within the range you specified. Return to your bookshelf and read the book associated with that number. (For example, if it returns “8″ you would read the eighth unread book on the shelf.)
Since, presumably, you eventually want to read every book that you own, this is a great way to add some variety and even inject some anticipation into your next reading selection.
Action Item:
Use the random number generator right now to select which book you’ll read next. (Second to that, put a reminder note on your bookshelf.)
(Photo by saltygal.)