> But it makes me stop and wonder why I'm spending time reading it in the first place. I feel like I need to be careful in how I read something like this, lest

> But it makes me stop and wonder why I'm spending time reading it in the first place. I feel like I need to be careful in how I read something like this, lest the time just be wasted altogether on the forgettable minutiae of history. No human can recall every fact they read in a book (Google for studies on info retention over time — not great). I think some desirable reading outcomes include - enjoyment - retention of a handful of particularly useful facts - hopefully quite a bit of high-level context about the subject matter (including summaries or take-aways) - AND, as Cal Newport points out [0], reading is just good for your brain — especially if you are a knowledge worker As far as tactics go, I have been using Newport’s suggestion of highlighting interesting text (and, for physical books, highlighting the corner of the page so I can find the highlights easily). I then make sure all of the highlights make it into an app called Readwise [1] which gives me spaced repetition of these highlights over time. Whatever you do, keep reading! Being a reader in an industry which seems to rarely read is like having a superpower. [0] https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2015/01/05/deep-habits-read-a-real-book-slowly/ https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2015/01/05/deep-habits-read-... [1] https://readwise.io/ https://readwise.io/