mindset

Then – a reader

I’m a reader from way back. My father loves to tell a story of how one evening many years ago, as he drove the family home from a night out he noticed a light go on right at the far back of the station wagon. Looking in the rear view mirror he saw me, aged 10, crouched over a torch and a book – desperate to finish one last chapter before we got home and my book was confiscated before bedtime.

Not much has changed since then – though my husband knows better than to try and confiscate my book regardless of how late I might be reading! I’m still an avid reader and I’ll find every opportunity to read.

Now – a reader

What has changed though are the books I read and how I read them. Then, it was all Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables, borrowed from the library as a physical book, and the time I had in which to read them was almost unlimited. After all as a kid, most of my time after homework was disposable – I could spend it doing whatever I wanted.

Now I am more likely to be reading a non-fiction book on management, leadership, technology or productivity which I’ve either bought or borrowed as an e-book primarily from Amazon. And I’m probably reading it in ‘stolen’ moments (micro-reading periods if you like) – waiting for a conference call or hangout to start; waiting for a friend to join me at lunch; or whilst at the hairdressers – rather than as one solid chunk of dedicated reading time.

But why steal those moments to read? Well it’s because I firmly believe that the more one reads, the more one learns and the more one learns, the better one becomes at one’s business.

And why read books rather than websites? Obviously I get a lot of my information from websites and I read those voraciously as well but I just find there’s three very good reasons for continuing to read books as well.

3 reasons why I read books not websites

1. Consolidated format

The longer, consolidated format of a book means authors have the chance to develop ideas, provide examples and go further into concepts than they can on a website.

Plus, if I’m not clear on something, or need to revisit an idea, I can easily do that in a book by using the search capability. Sometimes, in a website that original idea might be ‘hiding’ in a older article or section of the website, making it very difficult to find.

2. Offline reading

I know this reason sounds insane, but I might not actually have internet access when I want to read. A downloaded book (or physical book!) is obviously ideal for these situations and with Amazon Kindle, your reading location will sync across all devices. Start reading offline on your phone, pick up where you left off on your tablet and then finish up via the cloud reader web access. So convenient and definitely not something you can do with a webpage!

3. Mark ups and notes

When I’m reading I love to take notes, highlight bits and bookmark pages so I can refer to the ideas and thoughts over and over again. Bookmarking is possible with a webpage and Google Keep but with a book the sky’s the limit. I dog-ear pages, stick on post-it notes, and highlight paragraphs in both my physical and e-books – and again, the consolidated format of a book makes it easy to keep the linkages between ideas.

Let me know what you’re reading

I’d love to know which books you’re currently reading! Drop the title and author name in the comments and we’ll come up with a crowd-sourced reading list to help all of us.

By the way – if you’re looking for a book to read AND you want to get up to speed on using Google Keep, may I suggest checking out Mastering Google Keep by yours truly? It is designed around the principles of just-in-time learning and can definitely be absorbed over many micro-reading periods no problem.

(Image via Prasanna Kumar on Unsplash)

People often assume that the same approach will work for everyone, that the same habits will work for everyone, and that everyone has the same aptitude and appetite for forming habits, but from my observation, that’s not true.

Gretchen Rubin

I was recently listening to Sonia Simone’s excellent podcast about ‘hacks for healthy changes’ and was struck by a study she cited regarding the impact of values on people’s perceptions.

In this study, the researchers found that people who were reminded of a core value (that they had selected as being important to them) before a daily health activity reminder were more likely to view the health activity reminder in a positive manner.

Like most ‘hacks’ I read (or listen to) it sounded interesting and I ‘filed it away’ for later use, but then did nothing with it.

However, today I read an article about Bad habits and how science can help us change them and realised the author was talking about the same study.

According to the author, Sophie Scott, the study also showed that reflecting on my core values activates the ventromedial prefontal cortex – which is the part of the brain that makes me more likely to accept advice and change my behaviour.

Wow! Simply reflecting on a core value could permanently change my behaviour in a positive manner? It was obviously time to look into this idea a lot more seriously.

What do I like about this concept?

It appears to be very easy to implement and could be either digital (a calendar notification sent just before a pre-planned exercise session) or analogue (a card tucked into a notebook that you use on a regular basis).
It’s free – just the cost of your time to develop the value, as well as actually do the behaviour.
It’s customisable – feel like the behaviour has been ingrained now? Well, start a new habit and apply the value affirmation method to that!
It acknowledges that the “spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” and gives you a little ‘neural push’ at the appropriate time.

Ready, Set, Go!

Let’s take this theory for a bit of a test run shall we?

Here’s what I’m going to do. For the next 30 days I am going to reflect on a core value – both before a specific activity and also at random times during the day.

I’d like to see if this helps change my attitude towards the specific activity (doing yoga on a regular basis) as well as overall – will I end up taking more positive actions in everything as a result of reflecting on my core value?

Obviously this is not going to be a rigorous scientific study, but the 30 days are going to pass anyway, so why not give it a go?

Ready: Pick a value

So the first thing to do is to choose a core value that I will be reflecting on.

I’ve chosen as my core value Respect – for myself, for my relationships with others, and for the world we live in.

Set: Schedule reminders

Now it’s a matter of deciding how and when I’ll get the values reminder. I’m currently using Google’s new Goals feature to encourage me to do more yoga, and now I have set a notification that pops up 30 minutes before each session with my core value on it.

For the more general, random reminders I’m going to use an app like this one Randomly Remind Me. As Sonia notes (and I agree with her)

…you don’t want a post-it that you see every hour of your workday, because you will instantly go blind to it. But a calendar reminder once a day might work nicely. Or a physical thing like a card tucked into something you look at once or twice.

I did search for a way to use one of my beloved Google software products (like Calendar or Keep) but unfortunately it doesn’t seem possible at the moment.

Go: And they’re off!

I’m starting this ‘experiment’ on 21 April 2016 (the day after this post was published).

On 20 May 2016 I’ll report back here on how it’s gone. The key indicators I’m looking for are:

A more positive attitude in general.
95% of my yoga sessions for the 30 days will be completed.
More energy to do the things I know I need to do, but don’t always want to do.

As you can see fairly loose indicators but without access to an MRI scanner (as used in the study) I’m not sure how else to measure success!

Have you tried something like this before? How did it go?

3 reasons why I (still) read books