Utilitarian

Tools have and likely always will play an important role in the advancements of the human race. From agriculture to sewage, you name it, there’s a plethora of tools to either make it possible or to make it easier. They’re typically available for most looking to get the job done and often times the most basic tools are fairly cheap and available, though there are exceptions with more specialized work.

We read books to foster the growth of our minds and sometimes to entrance us in great story. If we use these books to develop ourselves personally, are we getting the most out of them for what they’re worth? Some books can change your life and others can enlighten you to an entirely new way of looking at things but how much are we retaining from books in the past? There’s a high chance that what we can actually recall accurately from a reading, even if we are completely absorbed by it, diminishes over time. That life changing advice isn’t so useful if its forgotten.

Life is complicated. What we digest in a book may not pertain to our current life situation, it may not even be remotely useful for quite a long time. If we forget or cannot use so much of what we read then why are we doing it? At times indulging in personal development can feel a bit mechanical, especially if we’ve done it at length. A lot of the books we come across start to become quite redundant but we do not stop because we know not all of them are like this, we move on to better books.

Like most things in life there’s a tool to remedy these quite common issues. Not all tools are equal in terms of ease of use but if applied to the right task and in the right way, they work magnificently. Note taking. Yes, the dreaded thing school has potentially complicated in your mind as cumbersome and to be written but never to be seen again. We circumvent this sweep the notes under the rug mentality by going digital. I highly recommend OneNote 2010 as you may find I’ve done elsewhere in my online presence because of its ease of use and organizational potential, its the best free version but it must be purchased by disk online.

This is not a new idea. Scholars forever ago carried massive tomes of knowledge with them, quite burdensome. These tomes contained loads of information compiled from their studies. Over time these tomes became quite useful and packed a heavy utilitarian punch. They were passed down to others upon ones exit from this world. These tomes are similar to what we will be compiling with One Note or similar. Over time the potential value that can be created by such a program grows. It allows us to reference what we’ve come across in an efficient manner and at the click of a button or two.

We are simply not able to retain and access every single bit of useful content we come across, nor do we need to. By transcending the limits of our mental information banks by going digital we can leverage the utility of what we come across in our readings. I think that if you stick with such a practice you will find it quite valuable, consider taking action.

I wish for you happiness, success, and freedom.