How I Read and “Digest” a Book

7 min readNov 30, 2020

According to PEW Research’s Book Reading 2019, 72% of Americans have read a book in the last 12 months, and the typical (median) American reads 4 books per year. For a long time, I was lucky if I read 4 books per year. In 2018, with the process I outlined below, I was able to read 51 books and since then have read 40–50 books per year! This post shares that process and some background on how it came together.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. — Edmund Burke, A 1700s Irish Statesman

Last Updated: 11/30/2020

MY PROCESS

1. Get both the Kindle and Audible Versions of the Book

Books with Whispersync allow you to seamlessly switch between listening to the Audible version and reading with the Kindle version. Bookmarks and notes will sync across devices on Kindle, Audible, and Alexa if you own both versions.

It’s often cheaper to buy the Kindle version with a discounted Audible version than buying just the Audible version. If you don’t want to buy the book, you can loan books (both Kindle and Audio) from your local library using the Libby app, but they will not have Whispersync.

For books without an Audible version, the Amazon Alexa app does a decent job reading Kindle books. I do prefer the professionally recorded Audible version when it’s available, but this has let me listen to books that otherwise I would have had a more difficult time getting through. You do have to have Internet access to have the Alexa app read to you. (I discovered this on my Appalachian High Points trip)

2. Listen to the Book

Listen whenever/wherever you can! Driving in the car, walking the dog, mowing the yard, emptying the dishwasher, and doing DIY projects around the house are all good times to listen to a book.

While driving, I’ll use Audible’s car mode that has three big buttons: Play/Pause, Go Back 30 Seconds and Add a Bookmark. I will also listen to the audio using the Kindle iPhone app because with Immersion Reading, it highlights the words in real-time as it plays the Audible companion Audiobook.

I also vary the speed of the reading. I find that 1.5X speed is more natural to the way I think and read, but this is not for everyone.

3. Bookmark & Highlight

While you are listening, listen for the book’s key points so you can highlight them in the Kindle version. I am a very visual person, but listening for this “Tweetable” content helps me better focus. If you are driving, you can add a bookmark in Audible that will sync to the Kindle. Once you arrive at your destination, go through your bookmarks to highlight content in the Kindle app while it is still fresh in your mind.

The Kindle has four colors you can use to highlight. This allows you to categorize the content to easily access it in the future by filtering by color.

Here is the system I use for highlighting:

Yellow — regular highlights
Pink — quotes/stats from others
Blue — to-dos (i.e., other books mentioned, things to implement)
Orange — temporary or alternate highlighter color when needed

The Kindle also has a feature, Popular Highlights, which I always like to review and see what other readers are highlighting.

4. Read to Teach and Create a Document of Main Points

Read the book as if you are going to teach the concepts to others. Several studies have shown that you learn better when you have the mindset that you will have to teach the content.
Creating a document of main points is a game-changer and a way to “write in the margins” of audiobooks. I will often copy the table of contents into a OneNote document from the Kindle app to start. I will then review my bookmarks and highlights and copy key points and quotes from the book. While this is time-consuming, it allows you to re-read the book’s best parts twice (your highlights). This helps to better “digest” the book’s information and easily reference the material in the future.
Write a review and summary of the book. Using the book’s main points, writing a review to share with others puts you in the mindset of teaching the content. I have started writing a review while I am reading the book. Even if you never finish or post the review, you are thinking about how you will talk about the concepts in the book to others.

5. Keep and share lists

I use Goodreads to keep track of books I have read, yearly reading challenges, and books I want to read. Goodreads does a good job of helping me keep track of how many books I have read. I also share all my highlights on Goodreads so others can see the main points of the books I have read. I’ve also started a Recommended Books list on my website to share some of my favorite books by topic.

6. Re-Listen to Books

It’s amazing what you pick up when reading a book multiple times. Not only do you pick up on more, but over time our roles and situations change, which can shed a whole new light on a book. When discussing books, Pam Springer has reminded me that it is the quality, not the quantity, and she will often listen to a book 5 times before moving onto the next one.

Sometimes if I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, I’ll put on headphones and listen to a book I’ve already read. It helps calm my brain, and I often go back to sleep, but I don’t feel like I’m going to miss out on anything because I’ve already listened to the book.

This is my ideal process. I don’t always do it for every book, but the better the book, the longer it takes to go through because I am trying to fully “digest” the content.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” -Dr. Suess

BACKGROUND

I have always liked to read, but I’ll have to admit I did get burned out reading books while in high school and college. After college, I always wanted to read more, but never made it a priority. As life went on, I only got busier with my work and family of 4 kids. I’d buy books, but they mostly sat on the nightstand next to the bed to collect dust. In 2009, I discovered the Kindle app for the iPhone and loved the idea of always having my books with me. My first Kindle book was Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson because I couldn’t pass up the price, which was free. I read a few books over the next several years but still found it hard to find the time to read a book. A business coach, Brad Dunnington, suggested I listen to audiobooks in the car to and from work. I was quickly amazed at how much of a book I could get through listening to just 15–20 each way to work. I was reading more, but I was not consistent. I wasn’t hitting my goal of one book a month.

Then in the fall of 2017, several things came together that kicked off an immense love of learning while reading (or listening).

First, our new health insurance offered United Health Care Motion, a benefit where you can earn money for walking. I started walking the dog for 30 minutes every morning while listening to an audiobook. My love of learning, combined with the fitness tracker’s gamification, helped me establish the habit of a morning walk.
Second, we were getting our house ready to sell, and I listened to several books while power washing, painting, and doing other DIY projects.
Then on Thanksgiving morning, I stumbled across a video in my LinkedIn feed: How Bill Gates reads books. The first point was “take notes in the margins,” and Bill said you have to be really careful that you are concentrating. It made me stop and think about my process. I could only get through a book if I listened to the audio, and how could I take notes in the margin of an audiobook?

How Bill Gates reads books

Another business coach and author, Barry Rellaford, had recently suggested I keep a list of my “goto” books along with their key points for reference. Between this video and Barry’s suggestion, they helped tie everything together, and I formalized a process. I shared this video along with my first draft of the process on LinkedIn in this post on Thanksgiving 2017.

I re-discovered Goodreads in the spring of 2018 and joined the 2018 Reading Challenge. Inspired by Bill Gates 50+ books a year and continued DIY projects around the house, I was on track to read 50 books and set that goal. It was an ambitious and lofty goal. I tried really hard to concentrate and have it be quality over quantity. I was able to finish 51 books while iterating on my process. Since then I have read (and re-read) 40–50 books a year.