What Doffy Does

- What you intend to quickly forget, spend little time reading. The habit of reading and forgetting only builds the habit of forgetting other important matters.

- Use the same discrimination in choosing books as in choosing friends.

- Read with a pencil and notebook in hand. Unless your memory is unusually retentive, much gained from reading is lost in a day. Develop a system of note taking. It will greatly help the memory.

- Have a “commonplace book”- a book to record what is striking, interesting, and worthy of second thought. In that way you will build a treasure trove of material for future use.

- Verify historical, scientific, and other data.

- Pass no word until its meaning is known. Keep a dictionary at hand.

- Vary your reading to keep your mind out of a rut. Variety is as refreshing to the mind as it is to the body.

- Correlate your reading- history with poetry, biography with historical novel. For example, when reading the history of the American Civil War, take up also the biography of Lincoln or Grant and the poetry of Whitman.

(taken from “Spiritual Leadership” by J. Oswald Sanders)