5 Ways I read Steemit and 5 Reasons Why should you ! For The SuperHero Curators and the deadly skimmers !
Hello dear readers :) , Hope to have more of you on here , all that curation is hard work , isn't it?
I'm offering you some of my own experiences in reading coupled with some basic principles I've amassed during the years , experience is what drives us , but how we interpret it is the difference between a growth mindset and a slumpy one.
I'm not a avid reader , so I have no authority on the matter :D , but what I've learned has given me some advantages and has let me get through large materials easily, I have to say reading is a art within itself, there is so much to digest and if it's written poorly you can go on some sidetracks and loose the thread , also if it's complicated your head can burst from all the concepts.
That is why I'm proposing 5 simple ways to go through your daily "mail" and 5 reasons why it would be beneficial First of all some disclaimers ,
- "Don't judge a book by it's cover"
- "Read between the lines" and always
- "Keep that in mind"
I will elaborate a bit more on those points down below , in the second part after covering the basics
But first lets get the basic concepts I use to get around and digest huge walls of text
like for instance the 0.17 upcoming Hardfork page :) with it's wonderful ideas and changes (can't say I agree to most :| , more on that if I get the chance to blog)
PS: or THIS Ezira: Announcement where you an find another WhitePaper and we all know how much we like that :D
5 Concepts to make you a better reader on the one hand
1. Skim it
if the material is too much to handle and you have not enough time , you might get the jist of it from a simple skim, takes as much as 5-10 minutes at most
2. Read it
if you find it interesting you can always read the pages and find the details within , there is much emotion and imagination in some of the wonderfull author's works around here
3. Re-read it
if you think you have everything down and know enough , you might have missed some points , so take it with a grain of salt , if the content is remarkable , every read will be different , because it will always work on you differently
4. From below and up we go
A way to get past mental blocks and overcome your limits is to tackle them from a different perspective , space/scroll , whatever you do , go where the flow takes you and start from there
5. Write it :)
The best way to understand something is to let it out and form it infront of yourself, that way not only you will see how you think and what you've understood , but others can too , so comment away if you have something to say. Sometimes a Thank You! is enough if the feelings have overcome you , sometimes words pollute messages
Those are my basic principles of reading posts , I've read over 1000s already ,
most probably more if the comments count to the number :D
And now for the sake of clarity I want to give you 5 reasons why you should take those concepts to heart and put them on your reading toolbelt , just like Batman has
1. Time does fly and we have less of it by the day!
2. There are many interesting topics!
3. Gems are hidden away below layers of rocks , so don't fear the blocks of text, break them down :D
4. Time and space are layered upon each other , so there are many things hidden between the lines
5. Because people care and you do too , we all like the spark of content we have helped achieve in others.
Since we have just 2 hands that is all I can offer :D , we don't have 14 fingers after all , so I wanted to stick to the strongest points
PS
Good Luck to Everyone on their Reading escapades , those were the main points, below are my own musings and exercises , This post WILL have a follow up , because of the "recognition" it has gotten , compared to my past ones at least.
Thank the votes :D !!! And now go be the Super Curators we all need. I will challenge you to test your mantle soon enough :) Anyone interested in the back-end is free to read on , more points below. Part 2 and 3 :D
PS
As I've said there are many interesting topics here and time does fly , I've been steeming sometimes for 8hours at a time , just watching my feed and upvoting reading commenting, then going around the promotion chats , repeating again , blogging on my own , replying to comments , so on and so forth ,
it's a lot to go by , but the knowledge I've gained should be enough to cover my expense of time and energy. I've seen many awesome thing here and the people are the best part , I've never blogged before in my life and even still with the support from the community I've changed so much in so little time
compared to my past daily/yearly "advances" I've learned just as much in ~ half a year as I would have normally, but expanded on my interests and gained many insights coupled with the challenges we have to overcome , just to satay relevant and get out of the swampy fields of no "Power" I've improved immensely both in character and in my understanding of people/finance/distribution/value . I've always valued content over payout and it pays out in small incremental steps
If you can "Keep that in mind" reading will always expand your attention span and
the amount of information you can hold at a given time .
Most people can also "Read between the lines" and find understanding of other
peoples emotions and problems, their life's and the ideas behind them.
As people we can hold as much as 5-10-15 "objects" in our working memory , everything past that gets tossed away in a subconscious mind or whatnot.
Reading and being conscious as well as increasing our capacity will get you a stronger memory, stronger brain so to speak , more neurons will connect and fire together
Afterwards "trunking" information into chunks will let you remember whole books in just 5 points , you connect a name and a place to a memory and voila you can always access it from one or the other and recover the experience the feelings even if you have given enough attention to the topic/subject.
And remember always to not "Judge a book by it's cover" one day you might hate it , one day you might love it , people find different appeals in different things
If you neglect something because it's SJW's(my ultimate disbelief) you might miss out on some laughs , or some hate .
The important part is that different perspectives test your mind differently and expand your world view.
Reading will make you a better listener , improve your thinking , information processing , even communication , imagination , what more can you ask for :).
Exercises
So to test my skills and give you some context here are a few posts I've "trained" and "measured" myself at today just for this post.
- Start small
https://steemit.com/diamonds/@gavvet/the-big-hole-becoming-mechanised
skimmed 20.81
read 39.96
supper skim 14.09
para skim 10.52
- Go at it
https://steemit.com/science/@desssyy/bees-are-being-reproduced-photo-story
skimmed 1.35.17
read 1.30.30
super skim 0.39.13
para skim 0.18.99
total time ~ 5 minutes .
and now i can tell you about the reproduction of bees , I have some experience there so that helps, but what I've learned is that the queen bee has a 3 year lifespan ,
the male worker bees die after reproduction , the "little" ones are taken care of by cleaner bees , and the royal jelly is for the queen mostly,
also young queen bees will fly away and make a separate colony when the reproductive strength of the queen lessens (after 2nd year)
, (or in other cases cause a inside war for dominance)*not mentioned , also there are many varieties of bees and some are more aggressive than others.
- And then some
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@mojojo/hello-my-name-is-jo-ann-and-i-am-a-new-member-of-steemit
skim + read 7.47.17
super skim 5.20.40
para skim 4.10.62
total time ~ 15-20 minutes
since this is my second read and I'm trying to prove a point I didn't get into the story this much ,
but I have to say the first time I read it took me at least half and our maybe a whole hour.
I was quite scared of the endless scroll at first , but when I started reading it really gripped me , the emotional side , watching ~100 years roll by your eyes from a perspective of a person that has lived through it sharing their life's story is truly amazing, I must have spent 2-3 hours on that post, reading all the comments writing some of my own and such , going through all that space time and the peoples reactions
Have to say for longer pieces it requires a lot of focus , to not get distracted and to keep the rhythm.
Something I've been building up for years I guess(around five at least) and when you get into that flow state
you really have to keep your mind off and your eyes on the story , occasionally remembering to blink :D
When I was still learning i saw in a book about reading that you should read with your finger to keep your eyes
on the prize so to speak , so they can learn to flow and just graze on that content , don't think about the words , just take them in at a suitable pace , your brain will learn to draw them in your head and soon enough you can learn
to read whole sentences and then paragraphs, even pages :| ,
a small amount of people have been known to read a whole page in 2 seconds , photographic memory i guess , but a trained brain with unlocked capabilities is a wonderful thing :)
,boundless and unmatched by time :)
Cheers! ,
^o^ Follow ^o^
Artists Unite , Freelance Advance :) , hope to get you going on here :)
TLTR = Too Long To Read. Basically, unless it is a narrative story people will not focus attention on it. At least not in a blog post format. In general people read the first paragraph, the second paragraph if it is short, and then skip to the final paragraph. Scanning images on the way past. Only 5% of people will spend more than one minute reading a blog post. The exception to this is when people are looking for information that is immediately relevant to them, and which resolves an immediate problem.
I know , but I couldn't cover everything in any other way , the first two paragraphs after the intro are the important part , everything after that is my personal experience , sure there are many things there , I just can't write imply I guess. Always tend to go off on tangents and get more and more out.
Sure if you go through everything it will take 1-2 hours :D if you do the "exercises" I guess I nee a redactor to put the simple concepts out and the bullet ideas for mass adoption or something.
thanks , all my posts are TLDR :D , following you , thanks for the comment , I guess I need to learn how to cut off the excess information , it is years of experience and still unpolished concepts , but I have to agree with your point , I do too , same thing , read the 2 paragraphs skip to the bottom , then go back up if i want to , I do however spend 10 minutes on posts not 1 and it's growing as a addiction , I always have 20-30 posts leftover to read each day :D
Cheers mate !
I wouldn't say that your post is TLTR but, you could work on strengthen your proofreading before you post. I noticed as I was reading there is a lot of line breaks in odd places, sentences not starting with capitals which makes some of your thoughts seem muddled until I read them the second time and of course, the perennial thing most people deal with, simple spelling mistakes.
I don't wish to criticize. I do mean my comment to be helpful. Your content was good, it just took more work than necessary to follow and none of us want our work to be like that. Keep plugging away. :)
no problem , thank you :) :D Yes I have to work on that , more formatting to do :) I think I cleared the spelling mistakes, but there might be missing letters.Yeah I have to do that proofreading I tend to read it 2-3 times while I'm writing it , then post then read it again and so on , I guess I can use the app , "Steem Writer" :D
have you looked Grammarly? it can be used free and helps to catch some of the spelling and grammar
Yup added it and will run my posts through, went around looking for a free software that is that good. Still haven't run into any. I like the fact it goes through what you write in realtime. Since I have the addon I have to say I'm at 2 minds :D , it flags my misplaced commas. Sure the form is better but in a way, I liked my broken writing from before :D.
Thank you very much, I will update my posts :)
All wonderful tips, though I would go so far as writing it. Really though, just to add to this, it all comes down to your attitude towards reading. If you read for the sake of reading, chances are that your attention span would wane before you get to the middle. But, if you read with the mentality that you want to support someone because they took the time and effort to write their post, then it would make things much easier. At least, that's how I approach things.
Interesting , haven't thought of it that way, normally I read because of interest and some egoic concerns , but always try to get to the bottom of it , just because i want/need the information , plus I really like to see how people think , what and why , so I guess I do the supportive part too :D just focus it on myself :D and I hate not getting a full view, I try my best to understand the topic or person , so I just do what I can :D ,
Thank you very much ! , either it was you or somebody else , but someones' pushed peoples upvote button :D .
Great point, once again , now that it has sinked in you have formed it perfectly, writing does take a lot of time and effort , plus the whole backstory that has led you there , and for me not taking those 10-15-30 minutes is a sign of disrespect and disregard to the writer, but I have to say holding myself accountable is far harder , so that is why I've highwired my reading habits and trying to get my writing going too , coupled with all the information there is about so many topics on interest/importance here and I've been spending ages :D so fat it's been 2 active months at least.
you read for your ego?? we have to talk about this!
I have to agree with the TLDR critique here. It's a bit too long. I would have split it in 2 or 3 articles and create a mini-series. Try to count the number on your posts and do some self-assessment. See where you feel comfortable and where the most reactions are emerging. You may realize your "voice" is around 600 words per post, and not 1-2000, as it seems to be the case with this one. Also, I would give it more attention to formatting and punctuation, it's important. Other than that, yes, you do have something to communicate to the world, just work a bit the form.
Steem on!
Hats off , yeah I've had the same thoughts on this , had to finish it quick and only spent 1 hour :D , was going to edit it today so I can fix the format a bit and I have to agree with your statements :) thanks for stopping by :) , hope I can take another shot at these challenges
Looking forward to it. Steem on!
I did revise it and truth be told I was thinking of making a group so that writers can leave their works and redactors can take over and such , but that just crossed my mind when I was writing this. Have to say I can't KISS , just not in my brain , when I start thinking or writing for hat matter , It always turns out like this, hours go by and the information piles up and up.
Can't quite learn how to break down , how to split in parts and post more and so forth , but I guess there is time for that , not my goal at the moment, right now I want to improve my ideas and clarify my mind a bit.
I agree with some of your major ideas here; reading takes much time, and so we need to manage that well. Quality hidden gems are why we do curation; when we find good work, we pass it on.
I won't comment on the many technical issues, as others have pointed them out; other than to mention that they are still there, and you have up to one month to go back and edit.
This is a big one, and I couldn't agree more. If we only read things we immediately agree with, we'll never learn. It pays to dig in and understand the author's original thought.