Filtered Reading

#160

While others are busy infinitely scrolling through Facebook and Insta, successful people double down on an underrated skill that will change the way you approach reading.

In today's age of information overload, we are constantly trying to keep up due to FOMO (fear of missing out) but also constantly distracted from deep work and creative productivity. As Herbert Simon said "A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention". Our physical and digital environments are surrounded by more and more content , some of it educational, some of it 'fake news', some of it utterly useless information. Due to our devices designed to reinforce our confirmation biases by feeding us only what we constantly search for, it keeps us from knowing what is actually true. Moreover, too many good options combined with not enough foreknowledge on which is the best leads us to second-guess our choices and judgement on what is 'right'.

As Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us."

People who are able to absorb useful knowledge in a short time while keeping away the irrelevant data have a huge advantage over others. Despite a barrage of information coming at them with full gusto, they are able to discern the beautiful sounds from amidst the cacophony. They are able to change their approach to the news and other information from a reactive to proactive one. This is the underrated skill. 

In order to glean the helpful tidbits from the endless sea of knowledge, ask yourself when you read something: "Does this have the potential to fundamentally change my life?" While incremental knowledge that further confirms what we already know to be true is temporarily entertaining or exciting, it is quickly forgotten. Today's gossip is tomorrow's past rubbish. But today's breakthrough knowledge upends the status quo and helps us see a whole new side to things by challenging our beliefs.

Another way you can look at and imbibe new information is by learning how to learn and using mental models to convert plain text into your own self-formed analogy, story, metaphor, diagram, chart, what have you. Mental models are representations of phenomena that have been observed across time, across fields of study, and across domains of life. They deliver the maximum value out of the knowledge consumed because of their condensed nature.