Get more out of the books you read

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Issue #122: becoming a better reader, shifting from individual contributor to manager, and some perspectives on the evolution of J.D. Vance
By Scott Lamb

The Medium company Slack has been lit up recently with discussion of the New York Times’ “100 Best Books of the 21st Century” list. Yes, we’re avid readers, so folks have a lot of thoughts (a few of us have picked up Overstory, and I’m left wondering: why so many repeat authors?).

Reading through the list, though, I have to admit I had that sad but common experience: Books I know I’ve read, but have somehow mostly forgotten. How is that possible? I know reading is good for my brain, and books are often the best way to learn, so how do you get better at reading?

One actually helpful approach I’ve tried comes from this Medium story by writer Bobby Powers. It’s extremely simple. Powers calls it his SUB system — star, underline, back cover:

Star key passages to quickly find them later

Underline essential quotes and ideas on each page

Record your biggest takeaways inside the book’s back cover

I used his approach recently when reading Kyle Chayka’s Filterworld, it worked great. However, I’d like to build up a list of tips on being a better reader, so reply to this email and let me know if you have some.

What else we’re reading

• The shift from line worker to manager is one of the most fundamental changes people go through in their working lives. And yet there’s rarely any training or support available to help them through, which is why I loved “Stop Working — You’re a Manager Now.” It outlines three things you should stop doing when you make the change to managing (and are good reminders even for those who’ve been at it awhile): Stop believing you can keep doing the same work as before, stop thinking success is about you, and stop solving every problem yourself.
• In some ways, being at a startup is just about making a series of mistakes until you find your way into long-term solutions. So this list of of 50 mistakes startups make will feel instantly recognizable to anyone who’s worked at one, though there are lots of mistakes in here that are just a part of, you know, life: Thinking you have all the answers (#1), looking for complicated answers when there may be simple ones (#22), not prioritizing low-hanging fruit (#33), and not taking pictures (#49).

From the archive

J.D. Vance has been many things: a veteran U.S. Marine, a Yale Law graduate, a best selling author, a venture capitalist, a U.S. Senator, and now, the 2024 Republican nominee for U.S. vice president. Two pieces from the archive look at how Vance has changed over the years. In 2021, Steven Strauss, a visiting professor of public affairs at Princeton, wrote about how Vance’s selling out his earlier-espoused principles for Trump’s endorsement (of his then-current senate campaign) would pave his political future. And Tom Nichols wrote in The Atlantic, also in 2021, about what he defines as Vance’s moral collapse: “what makes Vance so awful is that he knows better. His intentional distancing from his earlier views shows that he is fully cognizant of what a gigantic fraud he’s become.”

Your daily dose of practical wisdom: about building foundations

We all know the basic building blocks of a good life: Exercise, eat well, sleep enough, build meaningful relationships and do meaningful work. But lining up all of them as foundations of daily life? That’s another thing altogether. Luckily, building good foundations doesn’t mean you need to become an expert — you just need to get good enough.

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Edited and produced by Carly Rose Gillis & Zulie @ Medium

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