Posted by “Every book teaches me something new or helps me see things differently.”
Bill Gates
Bill Gates is a reader with a capital “R”. He reads 50 books a year – that’s 4 books a month! He reads an hour each night and three hours a day on vacation. He credits his voracious reading habit with a lot of his success.
He says the more you read, the easier it is to remember information because you have more context.
“If you read enough, there’s a similarity between things that make it easy, because this thing is like this other thing.” “If you have a broad framework, then you have a place to put everything.”
Bill Gates
How to read like Bill Gates:
#1 He finishes every book he starts.
“I don’t let myself start a book that I’m not going to finish.”
“I refuse to stop reading a book in the middle, even if I don’t like it.”
#2 He takes notes. Usually in the margins.
“Taking notes helps make sure that I’m really thinking hard about what’s in there.”
“If I disagree with a book sometimes it takes a long time to read the book because I’m writing so much in the margins”
#3 He reads paper not digital.
“I keep thinking I should go digital sometime, but I still like to read the old-fashioned way since I write a lot of notes in the margins.”
#4 He includes Fiction and non-fiction.
“I love the way good fiction can take you out of your own thoughts and into someone else’s.”
#5 He sets aside an hour a day to read. Three on vacation.
You have to give yourself time to concentrate. “Reading books like these you want to be sitting down for at least an hour at a time… It’s not the kind of thing you can do 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there”
Check out his Top 5 books to read this summer.
Sources:
How Bill Gates reads books (Video)
Want to change the world? Bill Gates says you should ‘read a lot’ and ‘find a skill you enjoy’
Bill Gates: ‘On vacation I get to read about 3 hours a day’ — this strategy is ‘key to my learning’
Bill Gates Discusses His Lifelong Love for Books and Reading