Have you found yourself in an information coma recently?
Over the last few years, I have been able to read so many more books than I used to. This comes from having a kindle and physical books but mostly because of Libby and Audible. Getting access to all these audiobooks has really opened up the availability of reading for me.
The issue I find myself in is “brain overload”. I have been sitting at the buffet of knowledge and refusing to get up. Now my belt is off, my pants are unbuttoned, my forehead is sweaty, and if I am not in an awkward slightly reclined but mostly vertical position I feel sick.
It feels as though my head is so full of facts that it needs to take some time to sit and digest it all.
This is inevitably my brain after a few weeks of feeling like I can listen to books again. In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari talks about how we are constantly moving from this news to that news to audiobooks to music to podcasts and never giving our minds a chance to rest and truly take in what we have just learned.
I feel like Audible is a blessing and a curse for me.
1. I am a horribly slow reader and sometimes reading it is physically painful. I have had eye issues since birth. I get crossed-eyed sometimes or I just can’t see the words cause they are blurry and after reading for hours my eyes truly do hurt.
2. I am usually doing something else while I am listening. Working on art. My day job. Or my side hustle (weaving slings) So I never have time to sit down and read a book.
I am filling my day with other activities and if I want to read I would have to carve out a lot of time. Of course, I could be militant about my schedule and say no youtube and video games are off the table “oh you have 30 mins before bed that you waste! You should be reading” that’s just not practical for me yet. It is something I am trying to work on.
Of course, having a great schedule that lets me do better things is great but I really can’t get down on myself just yet. Like in Atomic Habits by James Clear, you have to “be” the thing before you can “do” the thing. I am not a reader in my head. But I have always been an audiobook listener. And I’m not that upset with that.
However, the downside is I binge books. Ever since I learned I could 1.5x, 2x, or 3x a book I have never listened to a book at normal speed. Also in (I think) Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo or one of the TED books it references speed of speech and they said that audiobooks are around 90 words a minute vs the 120 words that people usually speak. So I don’t feel too bad listening at 1.5 because it sounds more like normal speech. Also, if I don’t speed it up I get lost in the slowness of the conversation and actually miss more of it. It gives me too much time to think of something. However, from all this speedy knowledge grabbing and cramming into my brain I never really take the time to digest what it is that I am reading.
But here is the thing that is starting to get to me about binging all the books. The breaks I need between reading are getting longer and longer. This is frustrating because I can’t get to the other fun books I have been storing in my library. I really do want to listen to all of them. Well most of them. So my thought now is what do I need to do to make this a better practice for me?
Looking back on Stolen Focus (Johann Hari) and Stillness Is The Key (Ryan Holiday) I have come up with some important end steps to take after finishing a book.
First, when I finish a book I must wait at least 24 hours to start another book. In both books, they talk about giving the mind time to breathe and come around to new knowledge and make it clearer with time.
Before our modern era, there was a lot of time that people could think and digest what they had learned. They didn’t have 24 news channels they didn’t have content noise from ad companies trying to keep their attention. And there were not all these really fun apps to stay on.
Second, I want to take a moment and write something about the book. Ali Abdaal from youtube talked about how he takes notes on books to help him remember things and I like that concept a lot. I don’t want to overburden myself from the start so I am going with the 3 sentences summary idea. If you had to distill the book to its core what would it be in 3 sentences? Like a Twitter summary. Also, don’t just have run-on sentences to make up for line restrictions.
Lastly, if it is an exceptional book I will start writing reviews on my Goodreads account. Writing a review not only makes me think more about what I have just read. It also makes me break it down so someone else can get value from it. It is like the saying “you don’t know something until you teach it.”
These are my thought on binge reading and what it has done to my brain. How I look to improve the outcomes and what you can do if you are like me.
TLDR: Recap
Binging books causes information fatigue.
To help prevent this after finishing a book.
Take a 24-hour break from reading.
Write a 3-sentence summary.
If it is really great write a Goodreads review.
Till next time.
Glenn Paskiewicz 