I'm getting back into the rhythm of reading more consistently. I generally read for about 30-40 minutes in bed right before sleeping on my e-reader, regardless of fiction/non-fiction.
This made me think, for people who prefer physical books, do you underline, highlight, take notes in the margins, etc. when reading theory?
Back when I did have a few physical books I never wrote anything in them, I guess to keep them in "good" condition. Even in school books I only answered exercises in pencil, lol.
So I'm wondering: what approach do you have for reading theory?
- Is it more like reading and absorbing the information more passively, where you read in bed, at a park, while commuting, etc.?
- Or do you treat it more like studying where you're sitting at a desk or at a library, pen in hand with notes and such?
I'd love to hear your thoughts/approaches/advice regarding this.
I take daily notes in general as a mental health exercise, so whenever I am reading an interesting text I add some notes about it.
Since I'm actively organizing, I also try to draw some conclusions (or even disagreements) from the text related to things I'm currently involved.I should also make some hypotheses to test later, but that part takes more work.
I also follow a brutally materialist perspective on my texts: my time is limited, so if a piece of theory has no application to my material reality, it's not worth the time. That helps me filter out actual theory from just reading for curiosity's sake.