I’m a slow reader. The problem is I can’t seem to retain things unless I write them down or sketch them out. It means that I read very few books each year, but it also means those ones I do read I know really well. This is great when you want to be able to recall a concept while standing in front of a workshop, but it is not so good for reading new content. The pile of books I now want to read is now far greater than I’ll ever get through. The smartest stuff I’ve read about productivity tells me that doing things quicker is a fool’s game. So maybe I need a different aproach.

That said, I’m a knowledge worker. Knowledge is my stock in trade: I need to keep it topped up. To vaguely remember from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People (I didn’t read it slowly enough), smarter people than I will ever be have thought of things and written them down – make the time to read what they said.

So, maybe there is nothing wrong with the way I read. I just need to make more time for it and do less of the less valuable stuff.

If you want to know some of the things I have been reading recently then check out the Creativity Reading List I’ve just posted on the Constructivist website.

Constructivist Creativity Reading List