So, I’ve spilled quite a bit of digital ink on the subject of how to read books effectively. There was this thing I once wrote about called the “URP” (Unified Reading Process). In my relative intellectual immaturity ¹, I expected it to be quite literally be the last word on reading.

It definitely occurs to me now that there is no last word on anything (and pretty much the moment we act like think there is, is the moment we start declining, whether as individuals or groups, altough the decline may take a very long time to become visible.) — We’re always improving, always discovering, always 改善ing

[One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way: Robert Maurer Ph.D.: 9780761180326: Amazon.com: Books] amzn.to/2th329X

Um, so, let’s just keep it short and sweet for now and flesh out the details later. There is far too much visual information in the world. Not that that’s a bad thing — we never have to be bored any more, and that’s wonderful.

However, this embarrassment of visual riches definitely does mean that if I, say, read a book, and take a screenshot, and underline that screenshot and save that underlined screenshot in Evernote, then all I’ve really done is created another piece of visual info that, good intentions notwithstanding, I am unlikely to ever refer to again.

So what’s the solution? Easy.

1. Get an IC recorder. No matter where you live, you should try to get a Japanese model; they’re better — way better — than anything you’ll get anywhere else. It’s not good enough to buy a Sony voice recorder made for overseas markets; you wanna get a Japanese unit made for the domestic Japanese market. No, wait, let me rephrase that. You can get a perfectly serviceable IC recorder outside of Japan, and it will be good enough to get the job done, but, for the same price or less, you can get an awesome one in or from Japan, with sexy DSP features like on-the-fly noise-cancelling that can literally suppress the sound of a roaring subway train, leaving only your voice. [Amazon | OLYMPUS ICレコーダー VoiceTrek 4GB MicroSD対応 V-842 ライムグリーン V-842 LGR | ボイスレコーダー 通販] amzn.to/2tgKZjU

2. Keep the IC recorder around your neck on a lanyard.

3. When you come to a cool part of a book, instead of highlighting the note, read it out into the IC recorder. If you come to a word you don’t know how to read, you can pause the recording, look it up, and then resume. Barely a beat skipped (recordingwise). Problem solved.

a. If you can and want to, you can also make a recording of the dictionary definition. Get yourself a learning twofer (a double whammy).

4. Every day or so, copy (move) your recorded tracks off of your IC recorder and onto your music player.

6. If your music player happens to be say, an Android tablet or smartphone, then you can make it so that you use two music apps at the same time but set both to ignore audio focus (PowerAmp and Neutron are good for this). This allows simultaneous audio playback of different files and playlists. One app plays your voice recordings, the other plays background music. It’s like suddenly having music with far more interesting lyrical topics than the usual two or three (love/conspicuous consumption/lost love). So now you’re a DJ, too. LoL.

a. [Poweramp – Google Play の Android アプリ] goo.gl/bqBkw

b. [Neutron Music Player – Google Play の Android アプリ] goo.gl/8EMZGA

7. That music mixing thing is worthy of its own discussion at a later time. We’ll definitely come back to it and unpack it; it was the happy result of a great deal of desire, happy frustration and experimentation.

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