After you finish a really good book it changes you. It changes the way you think, provokes new thoughts and adds a new part to the prism on which you view life. The novel concepts introduced are often adopted temporary into our everyday life over time we either maintain this new way of thinking, adopt new ideas to replace them or simply forget them.
More times than often these ideas are forgotten. If these ideas are in fact important and if they have made a profound effect, you should probably make these ideas a part of your life. Study these ideas repeatedly and with depth. Over time they they become a reflex, it becomes a permanent part of the prism from which you view everyday life.
My Approach
One simple and most obvious way to integrate new ideas is to re-read the book. With re-reading you can reconnect with ideas and even find new insights.
So while this may work for most people I often don’t make the time to re-read books and often there are only parts of the book that capture the essence of the ideas. Evernote plays an integral part in this process, I am able to scan pages into the app, highlight relevant lines and tags for reference later. This whole process of reading and capture allows me reference ideas based on a simple tag association and create a mosaic of ideas from anywhere.
Oddly enough we paid for the privilege to study in college but now we are rewarded when we study but often we don’t.
To be honest there is nothing new here. This is simply study, something we used to do all the time when we were in school. Oddly enough we paid for the privilege to study in college but now we are rewarded when we study but often we don’t.
Deep Work
So something that I’ve tried coupled with the approaches stated above is listening to audiobooks. Audiobooks while driving has allowed me to gain new insights and outlook for the day. So much so that I have added a practice that Seth Godin suggests which is repetitive listening. There are some books that I listen to once a month because they have impacted me so much and I want these ideas to become a part of the way I think.
Regardless on your approach of study, it is imperative, just like when you were in school. It's important for engagement in life, career and personal growth.