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A comment on Quantifying and Time Tracking My Reading.

Re:Quantifying and Time Tracking My Reading by lukevp on Sunday April 26, 2020 @01:27PM (#22988619)
Maybe I’ll sound like an old fogey for saying this, but... I enjoy reading and I feel like this level of analysis would take all the joy out of it. With exercise you are competing against your past self to gain strength and endurance. With reading, what is the goal to optimize against? I think it would be more valuable to summarize and annotate thoughts as you read the book rather than measuring your progress through it by page count.
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Re:Quantifying and Time Tracking My Reading by cflynnus on Sunday April 26, 2020 @03:14PM (#22989374)
For me, personally, my goal is to maximize the amount of knowledge and understanding I can acquire per unit of time. As part of this I guess I'm testing myself to see how long I can focus for each day I devote to studying, and to see if once I've quantified it, if I can beat it.

I guess after thinking more on this, I'm not so much focused on "how many pages can I read per day" as I am "how long can I stay focused and study per day"

Also, since I wrote this I've started using spaced repetition flashcards (with Anki) to better retain details as I read through books. I've found that spaced repetition flashcards let me relax a bit while I'm reading because I don't feel like it's so important that I immediately remember everything as soon as I read it since I'll be revisiting it later. This seems to work much better than just taking notes.

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Re:Quantifying and Time Tracking My Reading by akashtndn on Sunday April 26, 2020 @01:59PM (#22988826)
I do find some value in quantification but I resonate with your thoughts. I am curious about ways in which people summarize and take notes when reading books. Do you have any specific quirks or methods for doing so?
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Re:Quantifying and Time Tracking My Reading by cflynnus on Sunday April 26, 2020 @03:15PM (#22989383)
I've somewhat shifted my focus from plain note taking to making spaced repetition flashcards (using Anki). I find it to be a lot more effective in aiding memory retention of details.
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