Saturday, February 20, 2010

Nelson Searcy reads a book a day?


I heard a rumor from a friend that Nelson Searcy of Journey Metro Church in New York City read a book a day. I thought that with all that he did with Journey Church and Church Leader Insights that it couldn't be done. When I heard that he was doing a webinar through CLI about How to Read More, I had to jump in. It turns out it's true, he does read a book a week. If he offers this webinar again, I encourage you to jump in and hear his plan for reading. I won't give away everything that I learned, but I will share a couple of things that stood out to me. The first is that I don't have a plan. I always have a few books on the shelf that I'm wanting to read, but I don't lay out a time line or think about what book I will read next. I pick up a book until I finish it or get bored with it and then when I feel like picking up another book, I do. I can read so much more and be more effective in my learning if I set goals and lay out a plan. This really was the key take away. The other interesting perspective that I took away was how he sized up a book. He said that he will pick up a book, read the back, read the inside cover, and then the Table of Contents. At that point he decides whether he will read the whole book word for word or pick a couple of chapters to focus on. He also sets a time restrictions like this book is worth an hour of my time or I want to really focus on this and read it very closely throughout the week. I'm looking forward to applying Nelson's system to my reading plan and hopefully increase my reading this year! What is your plan for reading? How do you decide what you will read? How much time a day to you spend reading?

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