【Reading】Chou Yamaguchi's "Efficient Reading Method in the Age of Slashes" after reading

I couldn't sleep well at night, so I grabbed it and read it, and I finished it in about seven hours.
Very well read and well written. People who usually have little time and want to maintain effective input, I highly recommend reading it. He provides good principles and methods for reading, note-taking, and self-study.

The overall score is 4.7 ★★★★✭

I'll talk about the parts that inspired me and the fly in the ointment of this book.

The original name of the book in Japanese is: "Knowledge's Fighting Power を高める Independent Learning の Technique" (self-learning method to improve knowledge and combat effectiveness) The author is a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts History of the Department of Philosophy, Keio University, and after leaving the society, he stepped into the information industry and business management. .

The title of the book may be a bit over-translated for the sake of sales. Because the "slash" was originally intended to encourage sideline business outside of the main business, although it is in line with the author's resume, the content of the book is not focused here.

The content of this book is mainly to point out that the future (in fact, this book was published in 2017, this future is already now) will be an era of higher and higher demand for creativity, people's lifespan is getting longer and longer, but industrial lifespan may will be shorter and shorter. Therefore, it is more important to develop self-learning strategies that can effectively stimulate inspiration and creativity.

So how can you learn effectively by yourself?

Yamaguchi divided knowledge into two categories: business (economics, management), and humanities (philosophy, history, psychology, music, religion, brain science, literature).

The reading strategies of the two kinds of knowledge are very different: business books are mainly classics, but no notes are required, and a small range of intensive reading is sufficient. Humanities and education books do not presume long-term goals, read a lot and widely, but require notes.

I guess this choice is because the theoretical framework of business classes often changes rapidly with the times, so it is enough to know a rough idea, and in fact, adapt accordingly. However, whether it is a humanistic education that needs to be displayed socially, or a humanistic stalk that improves the quality of products in marketing, it is necessary to describe the source and content in a more specific and accurate manner, so the notes exist for the convenience of future access.

Here comes the point! notes! How to take notes? How many notes? Do you want to draw a line? 😵

This is also a difficult choice for me. Notes for academic research are usually done more carefully (because it is easier to cite afterwards), but how good is the general book category?

The author believes that we should treat the "book" itself as an extension of the notes, and try to draw the key points as much as possible! do not mention it! 👍

(Hahaha, I like drawing lines the most! 👍👍👍)

Then, as you read, collect as many things as you can that are "fun and feel like they'll come in handy later."

He used a cute adjective called "build your pool". After choosing a general direction, put fish (information) that may be useful in the future in the tank.

What kind of fish are you going to put? There are four kinds of fish that you should include in your pool, namely: "facts" that you find interesting or disgusting, "feelings" and "inspirations" from the facts, and "actions" associated with these feelings and inspirations. ".

No matter how many points you draw in each book, you can only leave 5-9 points , and copy each point for no more than one minute . Transcribe only their essence. (Remember to write the page number so that you can find it later)

In this way, it will not cause your reading notes to multiply indefinitely and waste too much time.

Speaking of note-taking, I have tried mind maps myself, and to be honest, it doesn’t seem to fit me well. I am more used to using tree diagrams to organize concepts. In addition, it was a bit troublesome to draw and change colors (hey), but it was no longer needed. Later, although I read Ryder Carroll's "Bullet Thinking and Arranging" , I found it very useful, but I still haven't found a satisfactory method for general reading notes.

At this point, I think Yamaguchi's note-taking method should match the streamlined style of bullet journaling . ✨

It can write a summary and review of a book on one page of the handbook very concisely, and you don't need to get confused when you go back to read it. For people who often have to read various miscellaneous books extensively and want to quickly jot down key points, I think it should be very suitable.

Of course, reading is more than just reading and writing. 🙈

He mentioned an important principle that knowledge can be used for creativity: abstraction .

In fact, if you have read "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, a super classic in the reading industry, you will find that the reading method taught by Yamaguchi is actually the fourth thematic in-depth reading in the book .

That is, you need to be able to turn what you read into a theorem or hypothesis that forms yours, that is, to get an angle of observation .

With a unique point of view, and it's an abstract theorem or hypothesis, you can find connected possibilities in different fields of knowledge. Get inspiration that no one else has ever thought of.

At this point, I agree with his rant about developing a creative curriculum: "Many people mistakenly believe that 'innovation can be systematized'. But in fact, the process of innovation itself cannot be managed." Because looking at all the innovations in history, Nine times out of ten, it is the result of a crooked building. 🤪

It also points to a blind spot in the thinking of those who love to ask, "Why are you reading this?": If you're always very specific and purpose-driven, it's hard to get creative. You can only be about the same as others.

Because innovation comes from a whole new combination of things that didn't know what to do.

They will only be able to help you in the future if you try to type in interesting things when no one has ever said to you "please write a book", "please give me advice", "please help me do this".

wake up! Without effort, where can innovation come from? Since ancient times, the goddess of Muses has not been so easy to please.

In the end, the reason this book didn't get a full five stars is that the list of books in the second half (outside of business) is a bit subtle.

Judging from the book selection list, it can be seen that although the author has read the research institute, he has not learned how to choose second-hand materials. (fierce)

I can't say about other fields, but the selection of philosophy books is a bit miserable. One of the authors of the philosophy book list, Uchida Tree, is not a philosophy department, but a French student, and Fromm is actually a psychologist. Sorry, they shouldn't be there. The field can be crossed, but the classification cannot be wrong. (sweat)

My suggestion on how to choose second-hand philosophical materials is: For philosophical masterpieces after the 20th century, you can consider reading the original texts (don’t be discouraged if you don’t understand them, and you don’t need to go to the Institute of Philosophy, just read the introductions of others). For example, Roland Barthes's "The Lover's Whisper" or Michel Sejor's "Thumbelina" are easy to understand and can be easily chewed.

However, for the classics before the 20th century, because the words are difficult to use, it is recommended to read Zhepu books written by modern people in the same field (if it is a scholar in the field) .

In fact, this logic of book selection is also applicable to other disciplines: try to find popular books written by experts in the field .

Therefore, it is usually recommended to look at the origin of the author, and then look at whether there is a detailed bibliography, and which bibliographies have been selected, and whether there is a clear logical relationship between the chapters and programs, so that you can roughly judge how high the gold content of this book is. .

For example, Haruhiko Shiratori, the author of "Supertranslation of Nietzsche", is familiar to everyone ( but philosophers usually mention it when they are telling jokes ). He was born in the German Department of Japan's private independent university, although he has a little bit of philosophy and religion.

However, there are still significant differences in methodology between the Department of German (which focuses on literary studies) and the Department of Philosophy (which focuses on theoretical studies). In addition, the humanities seem to have few professional terms, but in fact there are still interlaced lines like mountains. For the same seemingly ordinary word (for example: nature), the interpretation of the foreign language department and the philosophy department will be completely different (naturally). or natural/essential).

The same theory, Yamaguchi Zhou (who specializes in art history) mentioned Heidegger and emphasized "world theater", but I have never heard of this concept (only "world"), and this is not Heidegger's core concept. Rather, Heidegger used his own nature to fight against this indulgence in the crowd (going with the flow, everyone said), which seems a little subtle to me. 🤣

Therefore, if you want to know what a professional field is, it is recommended to start with the introduction books written by professionals in the field, so as not to spend time reading, and as a result, you will not be able to improve your knowledge, but you will lose a lot of money if you are misled.

The above is the experience and introduction of this time, I hope everyone enjoys reading it~🌼