I know you can read. You’re reading this, aren’t you? (If you’re not reading this, never mind.)

你会阅读。你正在读，不是吗？（如果你说你没在读……当我什么也没说过。）

But are you productively literate? That is, when you read, do you learn anything that you can apply immediately to your life, or do the words and ideas just bounce around your brain’s pleasure areas for a while before disappearing like so many wisps of morning fog?

但是你的阅读富有成效吗？你读书中学到的东西，是不是可以马上在生活中运用？还是那些词语、点子让你的大脑兴奋一阵子，然后就像早晨的雾气一样过一会儿就消散无踪？

Not that there’s anything wrong with reading just for pleasure now and again — by all means, grab a novel and hit the beach. But too often we read important stuff — how-to manuals, business and personal development guides, science and current affairs treatises, and yes, even personal productivity blogs with the same mindset. We read to make us feel good, about what we’ve done or what we could do or what others have done — even about what a smart person we look like reading such a smart book on the subway — and not as an exercise in personal growth.

不是说我们不该在阅读中寻找乐子。找一本小说，怎么高兴怎么读。但是有很多时候我们要读的是非常重要的东西，比如操作手册、商业发展、个人规划、科学时事论著等等。读那些关于产出率的个人博客也是一样。我们已完成的事情、我们可以做的事情、别人完成了的事情……阅读中我们感到愉悦，有时候只是因为拿着本书坐在地铁里看起来像个聪明人。我们却忽略了重要的一点，读书，是个人成长中的一种训练。

This post is inspired by Seth Godin’s post, How to read a business book, which I linked to earlier this week in our link round-up. Godin — the author of quite a few business books — offers these three tips for reading productively:

我之前在一次链接汇总的时候提到过Seth Godin的《怎样阅读商业书籍》，我这篇文章也是受到了它的启发。Seth Godin本人也写过一些商业书籍，他在提高阅读成效方面提出了三点建议：

Commit to making at least three changes in your life as a result of your reading.

让阅读至少改变你生活的三个方面

Create todo lists as you read, instead of notes.

阅读中，不做注解，列出你要做的事情。

When you’re done, give the book away, so someone else can learn from it.

读完一本书，把它送给别人，让别人也从阅读中受益。

Godin’s advice applies to more than just business books, I think — imagine committing yourself to making at least one change a week based on your reading at Lifehack, for instance.

我想Godin的建议远远超出商业书籍这个范畴。阅读lifehack上面的文章，一个星期至少会在一个地方给你的生活带来变化。

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