Reading non-fiction books can teach us a lot from personal finance to career development to startups. As Seth Godin once said, books are shouting bargain.

If you enjoy reading and especially take the time to appreciate the beautiful words and sentences, then this method is not for you. If you want to absorb the knowledge and information from books and do not have ample time in your daily life dedicating to read page by page, then this method is for you.

Most of the 100 books that I have consumed are business-related, or personal development books. And I find it very effective to learn the most within the shortest time. When I particularly like a certain book, I will buy a physical copy and read it more than once later.

Thanks to technologies, I introduce you to 3 ways of consuming content from books which would otherwise not possible.

1. Read the book or on Kindle

The more you read, the faster you will read. I particularly like kindle because I can bring it everywhere with me. I can read more when I am on transport or a plane. I highly recommend pairing it with a Bose Noise Cancellation headphone, you will be in the ‘reading zone’. Another benefit of using kindle is that when you finish the book, you can start with another one. Or sometimes you might want to change to another book to read depends on the mood. For example, I read about investment, but after a while, I just want to read about startups, so I can easily switch to another book and still be in my reading time. When you finish the whole book, you can start with another one. Having a physical copy is nice, but not practical. I only buy a physical copy when I like the book and want to have it as a collection. Just start reading, the more you read, the faster you will get. With his method, you can finish at least 2 complete books per month, 24 in a year.

2. Listen to audiobook

With Amazon audio, you can now listen to books whenever and wherever. I used to spend 1.5 hours commuting to work and I used this time to listen to books. Again, highly recommend Bose Noise Cancellation headphone, I used it for 5 years and upgraded from QC25 to QC35. There have been tons of audiobooks passing through these headphones.

Usually, an audiobook takes 5 to 6 hours, if you have 1 hour commute time to work per day, plus any other time you are on the metro or bus, you can finish 1 book or more per week. In a month, you can finish 4 books or more, it is 12 -15 books a year.

What I do additionally is to speed up the pace. I can absorb the information pretty fast and also because one of my strengths is Input (Gallup test). If the narration is a bit slow for me, I use 1.25 times. When you are used to the 1.25 times, it doesn’t sound very fast, rather a comfortable pace. If the narration is really slow, feel free to speed it up to x1.5. This way, you can finish 20–30% more books, so make it 15 to18 books a year.

3. Listen or watch book summary audios/videos

Have you ever noticed that 20% or more of the content in a book is to persuade the readers why the ‘method’, ‘concept’, or ‘core content’ is important? (actually, we can say 80% according to Pareto Rule).Recently I am reading the book <Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine>. It is a great book and very useful. But the really valuable content starts at 20% of the book. The first 20% is talking about how people used the profit first method and revamped their business, and why the traditional accounting method is not designed for a profitable business. Yes, exactly when it showed ‘20%’ on my kindle and I started to read the ‘HOW’.

If you want to learn from the author and want to know HOW to achieve certain things, that is why you buy the book right? Do you need to be convinced that what he/she wrote in the book is useful? I don’t think so. For some books, you can already learn from the core content. That is why book summaries are a great way of getting the essentials. If you like the content after watching the summary and want to know more in detail, you can go ahead and read the full book.

I have used one app and watched YouTube channels for book summaries.

• Blinkist: https://www.blinkist.com/ When I was using Blinkist, they only offered book summary audios, now they offer full-length audiobooks as well.

• FightMediocrity: https://www.youtube.com/user/phuckmediocrity. The videos from 5 years ago are all great book summaries with illustrations.

There are many other YouTube channels making book summary videos. You can find more by searching the book title.

I don’t count YouTube channels, I watched them review the books I read or browse what I am interested to read next. They are for me a bit too short to fully comprehend the full concepts. But I like Blinkist because I can also read the texts from the app and relisten to certain chapters. With Blinkist, I think you can easily finish 5 to 10 books a week if you use your commute time effectively and speed up to 1.25times.

Combined the three methods to consume content of 100 books a year is very realistic. I think there are two important factors here: 1. Read more, the more you read, the fast you read, and the faster you can absolve the information. 2. Use time smartly and take advantage of audiobooks. Again, the more you consume content, the more capable you are to consume more content in a shorter time. Let me know what books you like in the comment below, and what books do you read more than once?

Happy reading!

More content about productivity <Goal Setting Method For Better Lives>