Conscious Reading

This is no wonder that Social media have been doing irreparable damage to our attention span, however, a similar detrimental problem is how it keeps us glued to multiple content pieces back-to-back. So basically every time you open your LinkedIn or Facebook to check your inbox, you simply do not stop there.

You come across a post with a click-bait stirring headline and you impetuously decide to read it, and in no time you find yourself interested in the comments of people who shared their golden words of wisdom, encapsulated in a couple of lines.

Before you know it, your eyes are stuck on the next post with an appealing image that seems even more interesting and there’s no way you can turn your back on it now. After all, what if you miss a valuable piece of information that could possibly help you grow your career by 6X in the next 6 weeks? 😀

And, then you read one more post. And, one more.

You are stuck now and probably forgot why you came to LinkedIn in the first place. An initial intent of checking your inbox for 5 minutes has already consumed your 45 minutes and now you are shamelessly justifying yourself – 15 more minutes and I am done with it for the day. 🤦‍♂️

Can you see how you got into the rabbit hole of content consumption – a thoughtfully engineered mechanism to keep users hooked for a longer time?

That’s impulsive reading.

This is a critical problem, especially when it’s costing you time that you could have utilized in a better and more meaningful way.

Let’s talk about what we can do about it.

Conscious Reading 📚

We all know it’s really hard to keep a check on social media usage and consume content thoughtfully, however, there are certainly some ways we can practice conscious reading – read what you want to, not what you’re made to.

Just-in-time reading: 

This is an interesting concept followed by many people. Basically, you read about something only when there’s a need. I am not a big fan of this approach because it’s hard to find accurate information in a short time when you need it. But there’s a heck around it – you can have a quick content library on your computer notepad. Every time you come across something interesting, just skim through it and save it for future reference. This way you can find it quickly whenever you need it, saving a lot of time.

Goal-based reading: 

This is my favorite way of consuming content. Basically, you get curious about something, for instance, cross-border trade between India and China. Then, you consume everything you find on the internet including Youtube videos until you have a clear picture of the topic. Interestingly, while doing this, I come across ten other new things that I subsequently end up reading about. It becomes a cluster study where you pick one thing and keep learning about anything related to it and soon you will have a greater understanding of the whole ecosystem.

Subscribe to posts: 

This is not just an underappreciated but an underused feature of any digital publication. Although we love to subscribe as a FOMO however we hardly consume the content in our inbox. This way of reading is quite useful and undistracted. So, usually, we read articles/posts from some 10-15 odd websites and newsletters, more or less. All you need to do is subscribe to their publication and get the content in your inbox. This ensures you don’t miss any of their content. I also love sharing my thoughts on the post with the publisher just by replying to the email. 😊

Save for Later: 

This is one of my all-time saviors, so when I come across an interesting read, I try not to read it right away. After skimming for a minute, I add it mostly to my Pocket account with a single click or simply bookmark it in the Chrome browser in a separate folder named “Read later”

There’s amazing content out there written by some of the brilliant minds.

We are not just the average of the five people we spend the most time with, but also the five pieces of content we consume daily (with work-from-home in place 😉).

While unconscious reading is any day better than not reading at all, however, since you’re reading this long article of mine, you certainly are a reader. You will definitely derive way more value through conscious reading – instead of impulsive reading.