hey what's going on friends so today we
are answering a question that i've
gotten asked quite a few times over the
years which is what is the best format
to read books in physical books ebooks
or
audiobooks where i guess you aren't
actually reading the book but you are
still in taking it well i'm gonna save
you the horse race here because in my
experience i use all three formats and
all three of these can be perfectly
viable ways to intake a book but
depending on how you are reading and the
purpose of your reading one of the three
might have a slight edge over the others
so that's kind of what i want to go into
in this video and i'm not going to break
this video down by the format itself and
section out that way instead i want to
look at the purpose for which we read
because i think there are four main
purposes for why we pick up a book first
and foremost we sometimes read for
relaxation we read for escapism we just
want to have fun through reading we may
also read to widen our learning our base
of knowledge or to widen our tea if you
want to think about it that way the
concept of a t-shaped person where you
have deep knowledge in one area then
wide expansive knowledge and many other
areas as well you may also read for deep
learning to deeply understand a topic
and finally you might read for reference
for research for a specific purpose
where you're trying to pull knowledge
out of a book and apply it to something
you're trying to do so for each of these
four different purposes what is the best
format to choose well again i think it
really comes down to what you enjoy
using all the edges that we're gonna be
talking here are the advantages i think
they're slight for the most part and
ultimately reading and the format you
choose to read in is just like exercise
there's no perfect routine because the
best overall routine is the one that you
enjoy and the one that you will stick to
for the first purpose for reading for
escapism and for fun what is the best
format well i think in general the best
format here is physical books there's
some actual research behind this now the
first study that we looked at for this
video was albeit pretty small in terms
of sample size but they did find that
versus ebooks people who read physical
books were actually better able to
remember the order in which things
happened in a story there might be
something to the physical tactile
sensations you get through reading a
book the you know the act of turning a
page the act of remembering which side
of the book you were looking at when
something happened that allows you to
have a little bit better memory of what
went on than when you're just looking at
an ipad screen or a kindle screen just
scrolling through in my case a
never-ending wall of text because i
typically use the scrolling mode on the
kindle app another potential downside to
ebooks in particular is the fact that we
often read them on tablets and even the
kindle devices have web browser built in
albeit not a very good one and we have
access to additional information
additional things we can do with our
device it gets a little bit harder to
really sink into the world of the book
and to really feel like you are reading
for fun to get lost in the story now
what about audiobooks for fun reading
for escapism there are quite a few
audiobooks i've actually gone through in
terms of fiction that i've really
enjoyed specifically the one that keeps
coming to mind for me while i film this
video is the martian by andy weir and i
have the old rc bray narrated version
that they no longer have on audible
which is absolutely amazing but i also
know that i typically listen to
audiobooks when i'm doing things when
i'm riding my bike or walking to work or
doing chores around the house and
because i'm also doing something else
that takes a little bit of my attention
not a ton but a little bit they're gonna
be pieces that i just sort of tune out
for i'm gonna have to navigate a road
crossing or something and that means i'm
not getting every single bit of the
story and i'm not totally immersed so
again i think the edge really goes to
paper books for escapism style reading
now what about widening your tea
widening your base of knowledge well
like i said earlier the concept of being
a t-shaped person means that you've
built deep expertise in at least one
area but then you're also reading to
widen your array of knowledge across a
broad variety of topics and for doing
that again these are small edges we're
talking about here but i actually am
personally going to give the edge to
audio books and that is because for this
purpose for just trying to widen your
base of knowledge that need for complete
immersion is less important and i'm a
busy guy i've got a lot of things i have
to do around the house a lot of time i
have to walk to work every single day
there's time throughout the day where i
have to do something where my attention
isn't completely taken up and i might
otherwise just listen to podcasts or
spotify or just find something to listen
to on youtube but i can also select a
book and i can broaden my knowledge on
something in a pretty shallow way that's
still interesting and enlightening using
an audiobook for example i've been
riding my bike to work over the past few
months listening to bill bryson's book
on the human body and i don't feel that
i need a complete and super deep
understanding of all these different
structures i just want to learn for
learning's sake so the audiobook format
is perfect for that purpose now aside
from audiobooks i don't think there's a
huge edge between ebooks and physical
books when it comes to this type of
learning i might give a slight nod to
ebooks simply because it is typically
easier to get a new book on a whim and
there are even library programs that
will let you borrow ebooks on your
electronic devices so it's just easier
to get your hands on an ebook when you
want to read something on a whim now one
area where i definitely think ebooks
have the clear advantage is when you're
reading for the purposes of research and
reference when you're trying to pull
knowledge out of a book and actually do
something with it synthesize the
information and write a book report or
in my case the huge video that i'm
working on for later this month is an
ultimate guide to using credit cards
i've been trying to pull information out
of several different sources including
books and synthesize into something that
i can present to this channel and
present it to my blog as well so i need
to pull accurate information i need to
collect it and i think ebooks definitely
make this process easier not least which
because you can search an ebook you can
easily bring up a little search field
and you can type in a term and see where
it pops up in the book additionally
highlighting and taking notes is quite a
bit easier with ebooks on the kindle app
for example you can just use your finger
and create a highlight and those
highlights actually get collected in a
centralized location within the book
whereas with a paper book there are
definitely ways to highlight i made an
entire video about how i highlight and
take notes from books that you can watch
after this one but it's kind of harder
to go find those highlights you don't
know where they are you can't search
them and it's a little bit harder to
collect the information from them than
it is with say a kindle book
additionally you can go even further
than simply highlighting in the kindle
app and the ibooks app because there is
an app that i use every day called read
wise and what read wise does is it
basically just collects your highlights
from kindle books but also from articles
from tweets from certain podcast apps
and it keeps them in a central
repository and it goes one step further
because they have a public api where you
can export your highlights to apps like
obsidian rome and in my case notion so i
use read wise for the express purpose of
getting my highlights from kindle books
and from other sources into a notion
database from there i can add notes to
them and i can even use synced blocks to
bring those highlights and those little
passages that i'm using for research
into the video script and research areas
that i'm working on now to be fair to
paper books there is also a read wise
app for mobile devices where you can
actually take a picture of the printed
page and it has that optical character
recognition technology so you can
actually create a read-wise highlight
from a paper book but it is a little bit
of a slower and more friction full
process than just creating a very quick
highlight in the kindle app and that
brings us to our final purpose for
reading which is reading for deep
understanding as opposed to that wide
understanding that builds the horizontal
part of your tee we're talking now about
that vertical bar building really deep
understanding of a specific topic and
here i think the edge actually goes back
to paper books specifically because they
make it so much easier to focus not get
distracted by whatever else is on your
device it's just a little bit easier to
maintain focus on a paper book at least
in my experience than it is on an ebook
when you're trying to read for deep
understanding and not necessarily trying
to pull out references for a research
project though there is a potential
alternative so recently a friend gifted
me the ebook version of alex ramos's 100
million dollar offers and right in the
first chapter he mentions that a trick
he uses is actually getting the
audiobook version and listening to it
while following along in the print or
the ebook version as well and he says it
actually helps him read faster because
it helps him to pay attention to the
ebook for a lot longer now i do want to
mention that if you do this it's
probably not going to make you read
faster from an objective sense and that
is because ebooks are typically narrated
at about an average of 150 words per
minute whereas skilled readers who are
reading silently to themselves and not
subvocalizing can typically read between
200 and 400 words per minute without
losing a lot of comprehension so unless
you want to set the audiobook to 2x
speed which does not sound very pleasant
to me you're probably going to end up
actually reading a little bit slower
than you would if you were just silently
reading to yourself but if the focus
benefit is there it might be a useful
strategy for you now one thing i want to
mention that doesn't really fit into any
of these specific categories is that
ebooks do have a clear advantage over
many print books and the fact that they
are more accessible because you can
easily change the font size you can
switch things into dark mode you have a
lot of options there so again at the end
of the day the format that works best
for you is going to be the one that is
number one most accessible to you but
number two is the one that you enjoy
reading so hopefully this has broken
down a few of the different potential
technological advantages format
advantages and focus advantages but
again ultimately the kind of format that
you enjoy the most is going to be the
best one the majority of the time it's
also worth noting that the format of the
books you read really isn't the most
important factor to reading more often
reading more deeply that is building a
reading habit which in my experience is
pretty easy to fall out of but it's also
possible to get back into as well one
useful tactic that i've used in the past
is a 90-day reading challenge
essentially i told my friend martin hey
i'm going to read non-fiction every
single day for the next 90 days if i
don't i'm going to pay you 100 bucks and
i gave him a spreadsheet where i tracked
all my progress and he could follow
along every single day that was a very
successful challenge i read 11 books
during those three months many of which
i reference all the time on this channel
and actually built my reading habit long
term after that and there are a lot of
other tricks you can use for building
long-term habits whether it's reading
more books or doing anything else you
want to do and if you want to learn
about some of those tricks you may want
to take my habit building class over on
skillshare this is a short one-hour but
information-packed class on how to break
down your goals into actionable daily
habits and then actually stick to them
long term which is probably something
you've been thinking about recently
since this video is going live pretty
close to january 1st so if you've got a
habit you've been wanting to build or
you've been trying to build you've been
failing and you want to find some better
tactics for getting it to actually stick
i think you're going to get a lot out of
this class over 60 000 people have
already taken it and i would love for
you to take it as well and guess what if
you're one of the first 1 000 people to
click that link in the description down
below and sign up for skillshare you're
actually going to get a one month free
trial which means that you can take this
class absolutely free and you can take a
ton of other classes during that one
month as well including mkbhd's
excellent class on crafting great
youtube videos along with thousands of
other classes from expert teachers on
business and marketing storytelling
audio engineering video animation and
tons of other topics so if you want to
start building your skills if you want
to start building your habits with my
class and support this channel you can
sign up for skillshare using the link in
the description down below and again if
you're one of the first 1 000 people
you're gonna get that free one month
trial you can also click right there on
screen to sign up and if you enjoyed
this video if you're looking for
something else to watch i've got one
more video right there on seven books
you should read in your 20s and even if
you're not in your 20s i think they're
pretty good reads as well