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Rational Reading: Thoughts On Prioritizing Books
juliev00

Oh, I didn't mention in the post that my formula is roughly 50% professional related, 50% personal related, and the personal is divided equally into non-fiction and fiction. I also try to divvy my reading time up at the same proportions.

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Rational Reading: Thoughts On Prioritizing Books
juliev60

I balance non fiction by reading multiple non-fiction books at once and then prioritizing and making time investment judgements based on current needs. I typically am reading 4-7 non-fiction books, where 1-2 are related to the professional development component of my work, 2-3 are related to the research component of my profession, and 1-2 are for personal interest or personal development. I would assume the ability to do this correlates with how comfortably a person is with multi-tasking, which you seem to be. And, of course, I abandon what is not of inte... (read more)

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1BenLowell
I read in a very similar fashion. On my favorite days I usually skip from book to book, reading a chapter of two out of three or more books, often directly after one another. I am a terrible multi-tasker though---I enjoy reading and working best when I focus intensely on one thing for about two hours, then switch to another. I will start reading one book, then keep picking up books until there are too many for me to handle. Then the books that are less interesting to me tend to be left alone and I end up focusing on about 2-3 non-school books and 3-5 school books.
3[anonymous]
I recall reading that we typically learn best if we take several, say four, college courses simultaneously per semester as is normally done, all of them lasting say four months, as opposed to a hypothetical program in which we take the courses sequentially each one lasting a month. If true, this may suggest that simultaneously working through several books over a given time period is better for retention than reading them sequentially within that same time period. As to why, my guess is that this is related to the fact that cramming is very bad for retention.
0juliev
Oh, I didn't mention in the post that my formula is roughly 50% professional related, 50% personal related, and the personal is divided equally into non-fiction and fiction. I also try to divvy my reading time up at the same proportions.