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Ep. 238 — the Joys of the Reading Life

6 min read

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Highlights

Book recommendation about reading >> Book backlog Transcript: Speaker 1 She wrote a great public facing book called, prused and the squid, which I really recommend. (Time 0:06:55)

The Benefits of Reading Physical Pages Over Digital Ones Transcript: Speaker 1 What she’s emphasizing here is just the ability to pause and just think for a moment about that sentence before you move on to the next allows you to integrate it successfully to existing structures of thought, therefore growing a much more sophisticated understanding of the world. All of this comes from the pace of reading the style of reading that happens on physical pages. On a screen, on a phone, on an iPad, we don’t get that. We’re skimming around and we literally physiologically don’t have time to think or feel. We’re not able to integrate the thoughts we’re reading. (Time 0:12:44)

Digital reading screws other cognitive activities Transcript: Speaker 1 Does this affect other types of thinking? So if we spend most of our time reading in a digital screen, instead of reading on a physical screen, will that impact the way we think not just when we’re engaging with text, but when we’re trying to do other type of thinking and other aspects of our life? Here the article provides evidence that yes, the answer there is yes. Marianne points towards a recent study that was published in JAMA Pediatrics by a group of researchers from Singapore, McGill and Harvard. It looked at over 500 young children. What they found is increased screen time at a young age was associated with weaker development of the brain regions responsible for the executive function skills that cover attention, impulse, inhibition and some aspects of memory. So they’re not getting the cognitive training that book reading in physical books gives you. Without the training, you’re not developing those skills. So it’s not just the act of reading itself while you’re reading allows you to do this deeper thinking. It’s cognitive strength training. It’s making those parts of your brain able to do that type of thinking better in the future when you’re doing other cognitive activities. Now, is this just for young kids? Well, no, Mary Angles on to say the same sentence. (Time 0:13:49)

Kindle is ok. So it’s about avoiding distractions Transcript: Speaker 1 Kindle’s okay. Physical books are okay. Don’t read on your phone. Don’t read on your iPad. Wolf goes into this in this article. It’s where the other distractions are and you’re going to read in those old ways if you’re trying to read on those same devices. You’re going to read in the skim style. (Time 0:20:31)

Educate your brain on emotional frugality Transcript: Speaker 1 You want your brain to be more comfortable with not having the big feelings at all moments. So that when it comes time to do deep reading, it doesn’t complain. (Time 0:23:58)

Well saved! Quite a contradiction Blinkist in this episode… Transcript: Speaker 1 If you want to adopt a reading life like we just discussed, there is no better sidekick than Blinkist because here’s what it allows you to do. Triage potential books to let into your life. (Time 0:25:40)

Kindle is ok for reading Transcript: Speaker 1 Kindle used to read is that the same as reading physical books when it comes to the advantage talked about by Mary and Wolf. I would say almost completely. Yes. (Time 0:31:06)

Data locality also in note taking! Transcript: Speaker 1 So I write my books in Scrivener, but I also keep all of my research notes in Scrivener. I have a bunch of folders and documents within those folders. I have PDFs I’ve dragged in there. I have a bunch of websites. Typically, what I like to do is put the URL of the webpage and then copy all the text and put that in the Scrivener too. So I don’t have to go to the website again. All the information is right there. I just have random observations of my own. It’s all organized in folders and the folders have subfolders and those subfolders have subfolders because it’s incredibly easy to just throw stuff in there. And that’s where I write. So all the information is already where I write. I write in Scrivener. So everything I might need for a chapter when it comes time to write that chapter, I’ve spent throwing random stuff in the folders for all sorts of chapters for months. And when it comes time to write a particular chapter, I can just go to the folders relevant to that topic and review everything I have there. It’s all right there. It’s like Taylor Brant saying, what’s everything that anyone ever wrote about King in the summer of 1954, but in this case about slow productivity. And I have all my notes. And then if I’m working on a chapter, I’ll start with that, build an outline, say I need more information here, I need a better story here, and you think more about that here. And then I’ll go get more research, throw it on the Scrivener. So I just take the notes and put them directly where they need to be when I’m actually going to write. I don’t want there to be intermediaries. I don’t want those notes going into other note-taking systems, rolled in, taken from those systems and pulled back into my book. (Time 0:38:24)

Amazing quote from the tech bro Sam Bankman Freed Transcript: Speaker 2 Quote from same Sam Bankman Freed. I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that. I think that if you wrote a book, you F’d up and it should not have been a sick and it should have been a six paragraph blog post. (Time 0:55:17)

Stop obsessing over development velocity Transcript: Speaker 1 You will see the title of this article I have up here right now is called Stop obsessing over development velocity. Focus on this instead. (Time 1:05:38)## New highlights added 2023-07-08

Episode AI notes

  1. Reading books allows for a more sophisticated understanding of the world than scrolling on screens.
  2. Reading books provides cognitive strength training for the brain, which helps with other cognitive activities in the future.
  3. Kindle and physical books are fine, but reading on phones or iPads can lead to distraction and skim reading.
  4. Keeping notes while reading can help with practicing and thinking more deeply about the material.
  5. E-books on Kindle are just as good as reading physical books.
  6. Organizing research notes in a single place like Scrivener can make it easier to access information when writing chapters.
  7. Libraries are a great place to promote books because they are usually unpromoted and accessible to a large number of people.
  8. Stop obsessing over development velocity and focus on something else to have momentum in working. (View Highlight)

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