Hmm, I write this article from within my heart because I’m a pure victim of reading a boring book; struggling to finish one page, stopping to check my phone when a message beeps, and never returning to the book afterward.
Let me share my story on one of my boring courses to read in my stay in school.
That was CSC511, talking about machine learning. Thinking of reading the course alone nauseated me not to talk of actually reading it.
I tried to understand the codes in the textbook, but that was to no avail. At the end of the semester, I came out with an amazing result (I got a “B” in that course). Let me show you how I did it.
Here are the newly discovered tips on how to read a boring book fast:
Plan your Process:
This is the initial step to get any work done. Planning is key.
Answer these questions “How do I cover this book in this number of time?”, “What do I hate about this book”, “What do I like about this book”, and “Why do I even want to read this book?”, all this will accelerate your mind to think of reasons you should focus on reading that boring book.
Let’s take it to my own case:
How do I cover this book in this number of time:
I asked myself how I could cover the course in 1 month, so I wrote down all the topics and researched on YouTube for videos on each specific topic to help me have a glimpse of it.
What do I like about this book?
I absolutely liked nothing about the book but I needed it just to pass and graduate to the next level.
Why do I even want to read this book?
My reason for reading that boring book was my motivation, I found out that if I failed that course, I would spend an extra year in the school coupled with school fees and some unnecessary dues.
All these made me to vibe up to follow the next proves which is the next step.
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Read when you are at Peace:
I knew I never liked the course, so I adopted a study routine to read it very early in the morning when my mind was at rest. I started with watching a summary of each topic on YouTube coupled with some audiobooks I downloaded then, I made sure that I didn’t read more than 30 minutes so as to assimilate what I had read.
The next time I read the course was after taking my siesta, that moment my mind was also free from stress and worries of the day.
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Break it down into topic by topic:
I broke the course down into topic by topic, and sub headings by subheadings.
I made sure that I understood a subheading along with some audiobooks and videos I downloaded for each topic to be read.
Also, whenever I was reading, I took notes of key points and important topics, noted them, and reread them every morning and night.
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Remove all forms of Distractions:
Just like I explained before, I read very early in the morning when there were no distractions, no noisy neighbors, or noisy children running around the house.
As for my phone, I freeze all the social media handles any time I want to read that course because I realized that if my social media handles were active, I could get a popup from ad saying “70% off” from a product that I’ve been longing for.
From trying to understand the ad, I could venture into watching a full video on how to get it for 70% off, and boom! another video to another video forgetting I was reading a boring book.
To avoid all these, I freeze my social media handles and focus on the main app(YouTube).
You could be wondering; how do you resist the temptation of watching a recommended video while reading a boring book:
It wasn’t easy, I was determined to learn so I avoided any video that wasn’t in line with what I was learning.
Teaser: What really helped me was the zeal to read and the will to graduate so, I had to go the extra mile.
Read with a partner:
It got to a point where I couldn’t continue, so I had to read with a friend that assisted me with some of the things I didn’t understand and he also asked me questions on the ones I had already read making it easier for me to understand more and grab.
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Create intervals:
Just like I didn’t want to lose interest in what I was reading, I took breaks at intervals during the course of my study.
Standing up to stretch my hands, take a cup of water, walk around the room, really helped me rest my brain for about 15 minutes, and got back to the reading process of a boring book.
Create a Prize:
It’s really worth it. Once you have achieved the goal of reading that boring book (a complete topic), congratulate yourself, take some time off, let it be a motivation to help you want to reach for the next topic, and the next topic that follows.
What really made me do this was that it created a challenge for myself and it made me want to achieve the prize that comes with covering the next topic because the next prize was higher than the former.
Accountability:
This is a point not really mentioned. If you really want to hit a goal, you need to have someone to be accountable to.
I chose my csc511 lecturer to be accountable to him, thus he made me go the extra mile in reading the course to understand it more, giving me access to questions and answers online that I could answer and be more efficient in the course.
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Final tip on Reading a boring book:
In reading a boring book, everything still boils down to “why you want to read that book”, “what it will add to your life”, the level it will take you to, and the things you will lose for not reading it.
Another important thing about reading a boring book is taking it easy with yourself and knowing that you will always understand if you are willing to learn and to give it more time.
I hope this article helped you.
Thanks for reading this article.
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