You get the most out of a book when it significantly improves your life to the greatest possible extent.
...
the goal of reading books is getting actionable ideas. To get the most out of the books, you should then put those actionable ideas into action.
...
- Preview the book you want to read
- Decide your purpose and the depth of your reading: Your purpose states the kind of actionable ideas you expect from the book.
- Preview the chapter
- Quick read the chapter
- Reread to highlight important ideas in the chapter
- Create the book map
- Write the ideas you get from each chapter
- Write the main ideas you get from the entire book
- Create next action list: Actionable ideas are useless if you do not put them into action.
- Integrate the next action list into you master next action list
...
Don’t forget to be flexible. You do not need to apply all these steps to every book you read. For not-so-important books you can eliminate some steps. The more important a book is, the more steps you should use. ‘Important’ books are those which have bigger potential of changing your life.
Using these steps, you dot not just read the book; you mine it.
http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2007/05/25/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-books/
