Reading a topic that doesn’t stimulate you is by nature very boring. Reading a topic that uses unfamiliar terms, acronyms and humor is annoying, and reading a topic that requires constant concentration is just a pain in the back side. Combine these three together and you are experiencing my first attempts at reading the Financial Times. It’s called Reading Block: When you find it difficult to focus for more than three minutes on a text. However there is light at the end of the tunnel, as today I managed to read the entire paper back-to-back for the first time in a week. I’m going to explain how to remove Reading Block so that you can learn How To Make the Most Out of a Book.

Learn the Basic Definitions

Every educational text will refer to the same terms over and over again. Until you learn what these really mean, you’ll be left in the dark feeling lost. Get a notepad and every time you find a term jot it down and crack open the dictionary. If the specific word doesn’t exist in there, then a quick search on Google, “define: term” will bring you plenty of answers to choose from. Alternatively buy a relevant pocket guide to your topic which includes definitions for the terms. I use The Economist’s Pocket Finance and International Business Terms whilst I read any financial text. Once you have found the term, write it down in your own words and learn it. Cover it up, and write it down again and again until it’s memorised.

Now, when you come back to read the article it’ll make more sense until the next term triumphs you. It’s important to remember that there are a limited number of unknown words, and that eventually you will not need the pocket book any more. At first you may feel that there is no chance in hell, it’s like learning a new language and that the number of acronyms runs to infinity but it doesn’t. Looking at the front page of today’s Financial Times you can see how easy it is to feel lost: FSA, CIT, SWF, KPMG, KKR, equity, funds and bonds. Yet these are only eight terms, three of which refer to individual companies. Learning definitions gives you a huge sense of achievement and will enable you to read with ease.

Learn the History

Often I get stuck when journalists refer to a previous event that I am unknowledgable about. You can’t refer to another story if you haven’t read it yet. Since the FT is 125 years old, that’s a lot of history to catch up on. Every author has read much themselves, and they will almost always refer to something or someone which is like a hint: Go and read this. History teaches many lessons, the only problem is that it takes far too long to learn them all. You have to make an educated decision as to what history would be beneficial to ease Reading Block, and to gain further insight from the text.

My decision was to learn how money came into existence, alongside with the first bank, bond, share, insurance and stock market. A simpler example would be that of a car. Learning how a car was made will enable you to maintain and get the most out of it.

Videos, Podcasts and Novels

There are other mediums of communication out there, and if Reading Block is a problem then perhaps you ought to try something else. Countless TV channels now offer online streaming (BBC iPlayer is a notable example), websites give free podcasts (or give iTunes a quick search) and you could always attend an introductory seminar. Humans process the vast majority of information via visual inputs – there are plenty of statistics out there to prove this – and so high quality (in terms of content) videos can be the quickest way to learn theory and history.

By listening to related podcasts (the FT publishes one daily) and watching videos a picture soon forms behind what the article is saying. Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to step back, learn a new skill and then approach again. Alternatively it could be the way in which the text is written that is problematic. I recently read The Penguin Guide to Finance that explained everything from the Time Value of Money to Speculation and Hedging through a story. It was very easy to read and has enabled a greater understanding of more complex texts for now I can refer to the story.

And it’s this last point of being able to refer to stories that I want to stress. Story telling has always existed in human societies, in all cultures from the beginning of mankind. You see it on the cave walls, you see it in the museums, religious texts, bookshops and of course the internet. We learn stories from the day we are born and the more stories we can relate to, the better grasp of the topic we will have. It may be the case that to understand one text, you will have to read many other stories first, which is why Daniel points out one ought to read books by the same author in order.

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Visit the Location

If it’s possible, go to the place that the text is referring to. There’s a reason why schools organise field-trips, and that’s because it’s one of the best methods of learning. You breathe the same air, you walk the same paths, you see the same things, you eat and drink the same foods and you carry out the same exercise that the author did. Imagine your father trying to teach you fishing, he can give you as many books as he likes, force you to watch tutorials online, talk you through it, even make you listen to audio CDs that represent the noises of the activity…Yet none of this will compare to the benefits of getting hands-on and learning through experience.

I traveled up to the City of London in a suit to do just this. I wanted to find the banks, see what they looked like, watch and meet the people who worked inside them, find out where and what they drink, eat, relax, socialise, work and talk about. Sounds quite weird, but it was one of the most useful things I have done to help remove Reading Block. Now when I read an article, I can picture the company it’s talking of, I can refer to some of the workers I met, I can understand the attitude, the preconceptions and the tone of the text just that little bit better. Meet the people the text is talking about and you’ll soon find it very easy to understand.

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Read Through the Block

The majority of times Reading Block may happen however, is not because of a lack of knowledge, nor experience but actually just the inability to concentrate. It’s the same as Writer’s Block, and the only way to solve it is to just keep reading. To finish a book, you have to start it. And even if for every two pages you read you have to go back one, you’ll get there eventually. Today I sat down at my dining room table, turned off all distractions and simply said I am not leaving until this paper is finished. The golden rule for figuring out a meaning of a word is to read the entire sentence. To find a lesson in a story, you have to finish it so be patient with yourself and the author. Read out loud and keep going back until every sentence is read and understood. As financiers would say, keep reading – it pays dividends.

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