3 Tips for getting through your reading pile – Pick Dave’s Brain

This week’s insightful question comes from Matt in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Q: I’m following your Time Management Fundamentals program on LinkedIn Learning. One issue I am running into is that my reading—such as news articles, magazines, and industry info—starts to pile up. How would you suggest I handle that?

Click to tweet this: Today’s leading news story: speed reading transforms an effective reader into an effective leader. @DaveCrenshaw

Are your eyes bigger than your stomach when it comes to your reading list? I’m Dave Crenshaw, and it’s time to Pick Dave’s Brain!

This week’s question comes from Matt in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He asks:

Matt:

I’m following your Time Management Fundamentals program on LinkedIn Learning. One issue I am running into is that my reading—such as news articles, magazines, and industry info—has been piling up. How would you suggest I handle that?

Dave Crenshaw:

You are not alone, Matt. Many of us are experiencing this right now. We live in an age of information overload. There is an unending supply of articles, videos, social media posts, and more. How do we stay on top of all of it?

Here’s an approach I teach in Time Management Fundamentals: scheduling time in your calendar for reading. Set up a recurring appointment, maybe once a week or once a month, to digest large quantities of media-based information.

But, don’t stop there! There are techniques you can learn to help you get better and faster. Learn the art of speed reading. This is something I’ve learned over time as well. I will take an article and set a time limit. Try setting a timer for five minutes. Your goal is to cram through it and get as much as you can out from it that five-minute span.

If it looks really juicy and important and relates directly to my business, I might schedule an hour just to go through and extract all of the action items from it. But in most cases, I just look at it for five minutes and then move on.

If you want help with speed reading, you can look up the Learning Speed Reading course on LinkedIn Learning, which will help you with that very skill.

Another option to consider is delegating the reading and digesting of information to someone else. I do this regularly with my staff. If I see an article or a video that’s more relevant to their position, I’ll ask them to go through the article and summarize it with three bullet points of actions we should take as a company.

Doing this not only saves me time, it also helps train and motivate staff-members to innovate.

Thanks for the question, Matt!

If you have a question that you’d like me to answer, go to DaveCrenshaw.com/ask.