Since I’m giving away all of my books on personal development, I figured out that I’d better reread some of them before I do. The only problem is that there are quite a few of them, and time is limited.

I’m not a fan of speed reading, but in this case it’s the only option available. Still, speed reading per see without taking notes is useless, as I would forget everything one hour after.

So I thought that the only option was to just scan the books while compiling a mind map. That way I would still retain a high level of information in a relatively short period of time. This is how I did it.

Setup

For this experiment, I used the book The New Psycho Cybernetics, which is a 320 pages book about personal development and psychology. I really liked that book, so I couldn’t give it away without rereading it one last time.

Anyway, a couple of sheets of paper and a pen are all you need. I was also listening to mozart music while studying this book, I think it can help a lot to enter the zone.

For the records, I started reading at 18:55, took a break for dinner at 19:30, then started again at 20:40 until 21:05. That’s a total of 1 hour for 300 pages while taking notes. Not bad.

Part 1: Table of contents

The table of contents is the most important part of the book. You can quickly get an idea of what you’re going to learn in the entire book just by browsing 2 or 3 pages.

With this book I compiled a first mind map by just browsing the table of contents. That way I would always know where I was throughout the book.

This took me a total of 5 minutes.

Part 2: Content

Now it’s time to start scanning the real content. I suggest creating a mini mind map for each chapter, and linking the most important facts together.

It’s important to understand that you can’t possibly read line by line and still finish the book in one hour.

The following are some techniques that you can use to read the book faster:

  • Don’t read entire lines or paragraphs. If you are familiar with a topic, there’s no need to read everything. You can usually get a very good idea by just looking at the firsts and lasts words of a paragraph.
  • Feel free to read in a non linear way. If you’re not reading entire lines, you are not constrained to read from start to finish. You can take a look at one paragraph before another to quickly link concepts together.
  • Look for keywords, titles, bold text, and anything else that stands out. Be sure that you always understand what you’re reading.
  • When building your mini mind maps, try to use your own words if possible. Another good things is to expand your maps with items that are not in the book itself but you still think are related. That helps in creating context.
  • Avoid paragraphs that serves only as a way to motivate you to continue reading, or things that have already been explained (and you understood), but keep track of eventual exercises that you may want to take.
  • Don’t be afraid if you go entire chapters without notes. Sometimes the first part of the book is really rich of information, while the second one is just further explanations. If you already know something, there’s probably no need to write it down again.

      • My notes:

      Conclusion

      I think this technique may be useful in various situations. For example you may use it as a way to get a preview of a book, before really digging into it. That means it can be used for technical books as well, as a way to quickly gain the big picture.

      One last thing is that I strongly advise revisiting your mind maps the day after, and perhaps creating a new one that you’ll reread every once in a while. Have fun.