Quality > Quantity

On his blog, Andreas Fragner posted an interesting article titled 'Writing summaries is more important than reading more books' that got me thinking. In it, he writes the following:

"One thing I’ve learned over time is to read fewer books but to take the time to write summaries for the good ones. The ROI of spending 2h writing a synopsis is much higher than spending those 2h powering through the next book on your list. Reading is not about page count or speed [1]. What matters is how it changes your thinking and what you take away from it. Optimize for comprehension, not volume."

You can try to read as many books as possible, but it's better to take the time to write a summary of a read book. Reading is not about how much you read but what you can learn and retain from it.

Investment for the Future

In his blog post 'Denkdividend: how note-taking can change your life', Ernst-Jan Pfauth mentions the example of American writer Nat Eliason. Nat has now published over 300+ book reviews, attracting a steady stream of visitors to his website. From there, he launched a successful podcast and TikTok account, earning money by offering affiliate links to Amazon, among other things.

This is not directly my ambition, but I find it a beautiful idea that other people can benefit from the summaries I write. I already notice this as I once wrote an extensive summary of the book 'Brand Story'. To this day, it is the most visited page on my Dutch-language website. And who knows what possibilities may arise in the future?