Have You Swept The Floor Today?
“Information is only useful to the extent that you can find it when you need it.”
I read a lot. Maybe too much. I began to find that when asked about what I'd read recently, I was having trouble recalling or accurately describing what I thought I understood. I've adapted a system to organize and better remember the things I read. This strategy has been developed from people who have come across a similar problem and created sophisticated systems of their own to deal with it.
The latest book I finished reading is Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday, and one thing stood out above the rest, a concept strong enough that he chose to end the book with it: It's not enough to read and understand something intellectually. It's not sufficient to think you know something, to "sweep the floor" once. It must be swept constantly. When faced with a situation that calls for use of that concept, you still find yourself making the wrong decision. It must become a practice. Too often I read books to say I've read them, to get to the end and feel relieved to be done. But the crucial question is how does knowledge become experience? What are you going to do with this, how are you going to make it actionable?
We live in an amazing time. We can read a book, and immediately follow up by seeking out lengthy podcasts with the author that further our understanding. We can even connect with the author directly. These new benefits come with a price. With the constant surge of information, the way we filter and make use of all this input becomes increasingly important. You really need to consider the purpose behind your reading. Is this "just in case" information, or "just in time?" In order to truly understand, you need to be able to use this new knowledge in context. Reading is passive, and it's up to you to apply it when real life situations call for it.
Aside from practicing what you've learned in real life, the next best way to deepen your understanding is to test the fragility of this understanding. To write about it, to see how well you know it from memory. To try to teach it, to explain it in your own words and see how well you can answer questions about it. What is the ideal way to organize all of this so it becomes useful and applicable? There are many approaches like Ryan Holiday's "commonplace book," which he adapted from Robert Greene. Another great example is Charlie Munger (partner of Warren Buffett) and his system of mental models. It starts with having a process in place to filter and organize the information coming in so that it is better remembered and easily accessible. The more you go through the information, the more it starts to make sense. Each time you return to your notes, the connections your brain has made are strengthened, and that pathway becomes a little better defined. This is a lifelong project that requires constant iteration, but here is my current process:
On the first pass, I'll read the book in its entirety and highlight anything that stands out to me as important, anything that I found especially interesting.
After coming to the end of the book, I'll give it a little time to process, and then go back through those highlights and write them by hand into my notebook. I started doing this as a way to make reading a tangible process. Another benefit of actually taking the time to write and transfer those passages is that it begins to feel as if those thoughts are yours. It's a way to make the thoughts your own, and eventually you'll use them in new and unique ways.
After that step of hand writing, I'll pare it down further by highlighting what's most essential from those notes. My note pages are split in two, with the original copied text on the left and room for notes of my own down the right. I take this process of learning seriously, with a table of contents for everything I've read. It's about making access and recall easier.
After all that, I'll transfer those pages to digital form in Evernote, which has a great photo taking feature for note pages. For years I've organized it by author and book title, but tagging by themes and categories is much more powerful. That's honestly why I've been writing on this site, as a way to use and reinterpret the wisdom I've collected from others. To find the connection between seemingly different ideas, and see what themes emerge.
This process definitely has room to develop, and just writing it out has shown me ways it can be improved. But having any sort of system, some next steps for all of the information that comes into your life is invaluable. I think that the gathering and organization of wisdom should be one of your biggest priorities.
If only I understood the things I think I do.
Because I am reminded so often that I don't, I must continually sweep.