Habit Helpers: Start a "Stop Doing" List

I was doing some reading for this week's habit, and I came across a 2003 piece by Jim Collins that had this little tidbit:

The start of the New Year is a perfect time to start a stop doing list and to make this the cornerstone of your New Year resolutions, be it for your company, your family or yourself. It also is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions asked by Smith: 

1) What are you deeply passionate about?
2) What are you are genetically encoded for — what activities do you feel just "made to do"?
3) What makes economic sense — what can you make a living at? 

Those fortunate enough to find or create a practical intersection of the three circles have the basis for a great work life. 

Think of the three circles as a personal guidance mechanism. As you navigate the twists and turns of a chaotic world, it acts like a compass. Am I on target? Do I need to adjust left, up, down, right? If you make an inventory of your activities today, what percentage of your time falls outside the three circles?

I for one am going to be considering these questions for a bit and coming up with some answers. It's an interesting look at both the idealistic and the pragmatic.

Intriguing.

Habit Helpers: Write an "I Did It" list.

This week's habit is to write an I Did It list detailing your accomplishments each day.

I've been looking forward to this habit. I'm bad about overlooking my own accomplishments and focusing too much on what I haven't done.

So here's what I Did yesterday:

• Cleaned the living room, entry, and office
• Adhered to my cleaning schedule (I'd fallen off the wagons for the first week or two of the new year)
• Not really yesterday per se, but it was apparent yesterday because it was Leftovers Night: I did really well last week with reducing our food waste by reducing the amount I was cooking--I'm looking forward to continuing to hone it.
• Wrote a blog post for Happy Heathen Humanist Homemaker and Over the Cuckoos' Nest
• Got ahead on Over the Cuckoos' Nest by doing an additional blog post
• Read the next chapter in How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and sketched out a plan for applying it this week
• Dinner on the table at 5:30--yay
• Read two sections of Bitch and a chapter of Breaking the Spell

Anyway, putting it down on paper was pretty cool because it made me take stock of what I'd done in a very tangible way.

I definitely think this is one habit that I'll continue on with. I like the sense of yes, I'm getting things done, that I got from completing this one.

Habit Helpers: Apply what you learn.

This week's habit is applying what I learn.

I am going to have to think on this one a little bit, because in some ways, I do already do this. I love to blog about things that I have learned and apply them to other situations and circumstances.

However, I don't know that I always make that translation well to my own life. So I did some googling, and I ran across this advice: Acknowledge the payoffs and losses in doing things the way you always had.

I'd never thought of it, but every habit, good or bad, is a habit for a reason--usually because of some payoff, small or large, that we experience by holding onto it. Why do my kids throw their socks on the floor? Because the payoff is that they save the effort to put them away. Why do I avoid pitching pieces to websites? Because the payoff is avoiding rejection. It works in the practical and the abstract.

Acknowledging the losses is interesting too. What do my kids lose in that? Well, they don't have clean socks when they need them, and their favorite spot to drop them (the entry way) is a tripping hazard. What do I lose in my example? I lose the chance to do something I really enjoy.

It's kind of a risk/benefit analysis in some ways. You way the payoff against the loss and determine whether a habit would be worth holding onto or if it would be better to do something else.

Pretty cool.

You can read the whole post that I found here. I recommend it.

Habit Helpers: Share what you learn with other people.

This week's habit is "Share what you learn with other people."

To be honest, this is another one of those gimmes for me, because we do this anyway. It's something I have done throughout my life. I can remember rattling off horse facts around the dinner table when I was young for so long that my mother finally said if I couldn't contain myself, I'd have to stand up and sing "I'm a happy happy hippo" the next time I said, "Did you know...?"

It hasn't abated as an adult, but my spouse--lovely person that he is--has that same curiosity about the world. He doesn't just listen; he encourages. I love it when we are coming at an issue from opposite ends, because I learn so much more than I do just by reading up on things myself.

And, unsurprisingly, we've passed down our love of random facts to our kids.

Back in the fall, I discovered Hamilton: An American Musical. We've been on a roll ever since. It's on in the car, around the house while I'm cleaning, we're singing along to it all the time. And the kids are obsessed with learning more information about the American Revolution. They want to know everything there is to know about anyone, everyone, and anything related to the story of Alexander Hamilton.

So we're googling. We've found kid friendly biographies on Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Sharing what we learn with other people? It's not just easy; it's fun.

Habit Helpers: Check in with your favorite knowledge sources. Day 4: Homemaking, Design & Food Blogs

It was hard for me to accept that, yes, I'm drawn to these kinds of blogs. There was a sort of pride in NOT being one of THOOOOOSE women, and it's really a shame, because I think it was the kind of pride that made me deny a part of myself for a long time.

Part of it, I know, is social programming. I was raised to be a traditionally feminine woman, even if I was always raised to believe that women and men could both work and even if my parents had a fairly egalitarian (in practice--they would tell you it's very traditional) marriage. That programming doesn't go away.

But I also feel like it's how I am too. I want my home to reflect me. I enjoy finding new and more challenging recipes. I like finding ways to save my family money. These are just things that I enjoy. I can't help that.

So when I finally cracked and acknowledge that, yes, I love looking at pictures of beautiful homes and great food, here's the blogs that I added to my feed.

Habit Helpers: Check in with your favorite knowledge sources. Day 3: Atheist, Skeptic, and Feminist Blogs

So I'm going to share some more of my favorite blogs. I think that as we go along, you're going to notice that there is a reason that I started this week by suggesting a RSS feeder. Without my feeder, I'd never make it through.

Check out today's picks from my atheist, skeptic, and feminist blogs.

Habit Helpers: Check in with your favorite knowledge sources. Day 2: Science Blogs

I love blogs. Blogs are the best. Blogs are a great way to find information, be entertained, and develop community with like-minded (and non-liked-minded) followers of the same writers.

I find myself drawn to blogs in a couple of areas: science, atheist/skeptic, feminist, and homemaking/design. Each of these has a lot to offer for different areas of my life, and I find it enriching to nurture all of it.

Today, I'd like to share some of my favorite science blogs and why I like them so damned much.

Habit Helpers: Check in with your favorite knowledge sources.

I don't really know how to work through this one online this week, folks, but we are going to give it a try.

Here's what I intend to do. I'll post Monday through Thursday. Here's what it will look like:

• Monday: Picking a reader app
• Tuesday: Science blogs
• Wednesday: Atheist / Skeptic/ Feminist blogs
• Thursday: Homemaking / Design blogs

There's a reason I'm breaking it up like that, and you'll see why, I think, if I do my job right as a blogger. ;-)

I didn't put much thought into my first RSS reader. I don't even remember how I found it, but I was with bloglovin' for about a year. I didn't even start using it until after I started blogging, in fact. Before then, I was visiting all of my blogs by clicking on them through my bookmarks. Yes, this was in fact in 2013. Yes, I am in fact just in my 20s, and yet I was still so far behind the curve there...


And it was relatively serviceable at first. Then I started noticing issues. They added functions that didn't work well between the full site and the mobile app. It was frustrating, and eventually, I began looking it other alternatives. And this time, I #DidTheResearch.

Here were the questions I asked myself to find a reader that worked for me:

1. How was I going to use it? I wanted to be able to access my blogs on the go and at home on my laptop.

2. How functional was the app? I downloaded a few apps and messed around with them. I uploaded about five of my blogs each time and just played with it for a day or two.

3. How well did it save posts and how easy were they to access and delete later? This was a major issue I had with Bloglovin' and their new features. I needed to be able to save and organize posts to access later, but some of these, like posts I just want to save until I blog about them, I also needed to be able to delete easily once I was done with them.

I found Feedly really satisfied all my needs and was easy to use.

Perhaps the most important advice I can give is to try different apps. What works for me may not work for you. That's just how it goes, I suppose.

If you're in the market for a new RSS reader to help you with this habit (or for any reason, really), check out this piece on the 10 best feed readers.

Habit Helpers: Read the newspaper.

Okay. So I'm a serious reader of current events.

But when I started considering how to do this habit, I realized I have a serious flaw in how I handle current events: I'm to the point where I rely mostly on blog posts.

Yes, when something catches my eye, I may do more in-depth research. I will click the links and find as original a source as I can for things that seem outrageous to me. But overall? I'm way comfortable just reading about something, cracking a couple of jokes in the comment section, and not going any deeper than that.

I don't know that I am willing to commit to reading the newspaper. Since we don't currently get a paper, it would be a little bit involved. But I do think that I want to mix things up and start visiting NEWS sites, and not just blog sites.

So I'm going to be taking a look at the AP, Reuters, New York Times, The State, and my local newspaper and try to make time every single day to check in and see what's going on. And who knows? Maybe this will be one of those instances when I switch from digital to printed. ;-)

Habit Helpers: Watch Educational Videos Instead of TV

A migraine took me down yesterday, and I wound up not doing any watching, educational or otherwise.

I did listen to a couple of podcasts before it hit though. I'm personally loving the new NPR Politics podcast. It was just launched a week or so ago, so check out the archive HERE, and it will still be plenty relevant.

I also caught up on Wednesday's "Stuff You Missed in History Class" episode: St. Clair's Defeat, or The Battle of a Thousand Slain. Highly recommend that also.

I was planning on listening to the Thinking Atheist for this week, but it turned out to be the same show I'd seen him do recently, so I skipped it. I do recommend seeing it live--it's pretty great.

Anyway....what are you watching? Or listening to?

Habit Helpers: Watch Educational Videos Instead of TV: More TED Talks

Okay, so the TED Talks thing is working out really well for me. Turns out, that format is a little addictive, especially since they autoplay when I start them on my computer. It's also easier to incorporate them into tasks than I thought it would be--yesterday, I was doing laundry (and catching up--I'd washed laundry Monday but had...uh...neglected to fold any of it....) and while I was folding, I set my computer up on my dresser and managed to watch a whole mess of really interesting videos. I also learned more about bonobos, an ape I only casually knew existed, which was really exciting in a ridiculous and disproportionate way for me. ;-)

Based on what I watched yesterday, here's the TED Talks I enjoyed (basically all of them I watched...):

"Why People Believe Weird Things" (Michael Shermer): Shermer discusses the different ways that our minds can trick us, the evolutionary origins of some of these tricks, and a lot more.

"Homeopathy, Quackery, and Fraud" (James Randi): Randi discusses how people can be deceived by claims of the paranormal, and perhaps most importantly, why we should care enough to be skeptical.

"What We Think We Know" (Jonathan Drori): Drori discusses the ways that science education fails and how we can do it better by addressing the preconceptions children come into the classroom with.

"The Moral Bias Behind Your Search Results" (Andreas Ekström): Ekström reminds us to be cautious, because even the infamous Google makes judgement calls about its algorithms and the results they return.

"This Is What LGBT Life Is Like Around the World" (Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols): Chang and Dazols went around the world to find stories of what real LGBT individuals are doing in their communities, and it's fun and uplifting to see them tell the tales of the "Super Gays" they encountered along the way.

"The Coolest Animal You Know Nothing About" (Patrícia Medici): Okay, so the title wasn't really applicable to me. The fact that I already knew some about tapirs (and Medici) actually drew me to the Talk. Big A and I checked out a book last year written about Medici's efforts to conserve the species. Still, it was pretty awesome.

"Evolution's Gift of Play, From Bonobo Apes to Humans" (Isabel Behncke): This was where I just let the autoplay go. After the tapir video, it jumped to this one, and I was, to be honest, really taken in by these apes. They're pretty awesome, and who doesn't want to learn more about a species that has sex to say 'HELLO!'?

"The Gentle Genius of Bonobos" (Susan Savage-Rumbaugh): Really, y'all, these creatures are amazing. You have to watch this talk--it's just...so cool.

"The Shrimp With a Kick" (Sheila Patek): One of the things that I love about TED so far (and I experienced this in the podcast too, but it's way more noticeable in the videos) is that subjects that I would never, EVER, have pursued myself are just absolutely electrified by the passion of the presenter. The Mantis Shrimp is a topic I didn't know existed, and one that I probably wouldn't have cared about if I did know it existed, but this video (again, thanks to autoplay!) was another of my favorites. Patek loves these little whackers and her enthusiasm is contagious.

Anyway, I enjoyed all of these thoroughly and I highly recommend them. Most of them are a little long--I think the tapir one is the shortest at just over six minutes--but it was so worth it to see so many perspectives. The inspiration isn't even necessarily from the information; it's from the passion. I'm a fan.

Habit Helpers: Watch Educational Videos Instead Of TV

So, I watched a TED Talk yesterday, in line with my goals for this habit. I also made a list of several of the speakers that I want to watch over the next few months.

I picked a talk that I learned about through the TED Radio Hour podcast. In the podcast, they feature snippets from various talks, tied together by a similar theme. The podcast that I was thinking of is "Unstoppable Learning". In that podcast, they featured Sugata Mitra and his School in the Cloud.

You can watch the whole TED Talk here.

One of my favorite quotes (I paraphrase) talks about how learning will happen--we just have to let it. I really agree with this idea because our ability to learn is one of our strengths as a species. We have such a capacity for learning that it seems that it must have been an adaptation conferred by the process of natural selection.

I find that parents, especially new parents, tend to really stress over whether their children are learning or not. I know that I did. As I watched my kiddos, though, I realized that they are going to learn no matter what. All I had to do was get out of their way.

It's a great talk. Take a look.

Habit Helpers: Watch Educational Videos Instead of Television: My Netflix Documentary List

I failed yesterday. I did not watch a single video, instead opting to watch the Blacklist last night. I have no regrets!

I thought that instead I would share my Netflix documentary list. Here's a look, in no particular order except that I really, really, really want to watch Beasts of No Nation, so badly, so it gets the number one spot.

• Beasts of No Nation (I realize this isn't TECHNICALLY a documentary, but I still think it's close enough, or maybe I am just trying to justify how badly I want to watch it...)
• Chariots of the Gods
• Hoop Dreams
• Grizzly man
• The Thin Blue Line
• Los Angeles Play Itself
• Man with a Movie Camera
• The Act of Killing
• The Up Series
• Leviathan
• Muscle Shoals
• Exit through the Gift Shop
• The Overnighters
• The Punk Singer
• The Queen of Versailles
• No No: A Dockumentary
• Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
• Ballet 422
• How to Survive a Plauge
• Brooklyn Castle
• Man on Wire
• Samsara
• Sins of My Father
• Let the Fire Burn
• The Square
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams
• Biggie & Tupac
• The Imposter
• Touching the Void
• Keep on Keepin' On
• The Source Family
• Finding Fela
• What Happened, Miss Simone?
• Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows
• The Black Power Mixtape, 1967-1975
• Life Itself
• Paris is Burning
• The Last Waltz
• Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father
• 20 Feet from Stardom
• The Waiting Room
• Happy Valley
• Girlhood
• The Green Prince
• Into the Abyss
• Vernon, Florida
• Brother's Keeper
• Sherman's March
• Happy Valley
• The Epic of Everest
• Deep Water
• Room 237
• Life Itself
• Detropia
• Actress
• Stories We Tell
• Rich Hill
• Virunga
• First Position
• Life in a Day

What are you looking to watch?

Habit Helpers: Watch Educational Videos Instead of Television

I have to be honest: This is another one of those habits I'm kind of "meh" about for a variety of reasons.

Imma try not to humblebrag, but I'm not a big TV watcher to begin with. During the days when Big A is at school and Spousal Unit is at work, the TV's not usually on at all. I think this dates back to my childhood, because my mom was the same way. Indeed, I can remember while my dad was in Bosnia for nine months, we used the TV so rarely that it began to look just...dusty. All the time.

So it's hard for me to imagine wanting to find time to replace TV with other videos, because the time that I do spend watching TV is for items that I really enjoy. Honestly, I'm not inclined to give that up.

Also, I got behind on Once Upon a Time and I promised one of my dear friends that I will absolutely be pushing to get caught back up, soooooo...........

Whenever I encounter a habit that's not really workable for my life, I try to come up with ways to honor the principle. The principle, in this case, seems to be finding sources for information that aren't print. Here's the three ways that I've come up with to practice this:

1. I already listen to podcasts at an alarming rate. I'll keep doing this while I'm doing my housework and blogging (I'm listening to Skeptic's Guide to the Universe right now!).
2. I have generated a list of Netflix documentaries. I'm going to try to work through them over the next year (there's about 62 of them right now).
3. I will make a list of TED talks to watch. I'll try to watch one or two a week. I already listen to the TED Radio Hour, so I know I like that format. Might be nice to take a peek at the original format, and I've heard good things.

So I think that I can work on this one in spirit. We'll just have to see!

Habit Helpers: Read a Chapter a Day: Reflecting

If you've been following along with these habits, what did you think of this one? By far, it's one of my favorites--and a good part of that is because it was already part of my routine.

Here's a snap of how I keep up with what I'm reading each day:

I also make an effort to actively schedule time for reading:

So there ya go. That's my dual-wielded secret for making sure that I make time to read every day.

For a while after I became a stay at home parent, I had trouble adjusting. I still do sometimes. It felt like I had no intellectual stimulation. I felt like my mind was just...stagnating. I didn't really talk to other people. My world suddenly shrank to the size of my home and my kid's school, and that was it. I watched more TV than I ever had in my life.

One day, I stopped and I realized I couldn't remember the last time I had picked up a book. Me, the person who preordered the Deathly Hallows and didn't sleep until I had finished reading it. Me, who had never been seen without a book for the majority of my life. I'm surprised my family and friends still recognized me...

And it dawned on me: I was deeply unhappy. Not with my home or my life or my family, but with the way that I'd neglected myself. I'd neglected my own headspace.

Reading comforts me. It relaxes me. I'd shuffled it to the side because it didn't seem like it was important, but I realized that it was important. It was important enough to be one of the activities that I don't skip.

For me, this habit isn't even about getting smarter (arguably, none of them are--this is jus fun) but about organizing the headspace I've already got.

How about you?

Habit Helpers: Read A Chapter A Day: Can we talk about how important it is to read to kids?

I'm not going to pull a lot of resources for this one, but I wanted to talk about how important reading to kids is.

I'm a mom of two full-time, stepmom of two more that we usually have for a few holidays and the summertime. Sometimes, making time to read to my kids is a struggle. It's usually in the evenings, after we've already pushed through cooking dinner, eating dinner, cleaning up after dinner, cleaning up after our day, laying out clothes for the next day, making lunches, and all of the other attendant activities that go along with taking care of little (and bigger) ones over the course of a day.

When I feel myself lagging on it, I remind myself of why it's important, and it works for me.

• Reading gives me a chance to snuggle with my kids--even though they are now big enough that they rarely want me to snuggle with them on a regular basis anymore. This snuggling is about more than just us bonding; it releases oxytocin, which allows my kids to form positive associations with the idea of reading.
• Kids that are read to (and talked to, for the record) tend to have 30 million or more words than kids that aren't. That's a huge difference.
• Six minutes of reading relieves stress measurably. At least twenty minutes of reading in the evening allows us a chance to unwind and let our minds rest before we shift into bedtime.
• Kids that are read to learn to empathize very readily. The more diverse their reading, the better.
• Reading teaches my kids to communicate in new and better ways. They learn different sentence structures and how to convey what they want to say.
• Reading aloud actually activates parts of children's brains--even those of babies!--that stimulate language processing.

How can you make it work for you?

There's no good answer to this. Here's some recommendations:

• Try to set aside a scheduled block of time to read. This was really hard for our family when I was working. My schedule was off the wall, and my spouse's school schedule wasn't always steady either.
• Don't stress it if you miss a day or two. I tried to be really rigid about reading together. You know what happened? It got to be a really crappy chore, and I didn't look forward to it. How sad is that? Giving myself space to adjust as necessary makes a huge difference.
• Persevere through the "just one more time" phase. Big A, my older son, got hung up on "How I Became a Pirate". I read that book so many times that I could quote it. I no longer had to read from the pages. It was terrible. I thought I was going to tear my hair out. I started to try to justify forcing him to choose something else. Diversity, right? It's important...in the end, he eventually shifted to something else, and I knew that whatever emotional need How I Became a Pirate satisfied for him had been met. Just push through, guys. It will end. It will end.
• Give into just one more chapter when you can. We're up to chapter books now for our read alouds. Right now we're doing Eragon. When my kids ask for one more chapter, I try to give in as often as I can. My mom did this for me way back when we were reading The Hobbit when I was three going on four years old, and I remember enjoying that moment. It was literal elation for me every time she said yes. I enjoy knowing that I can give my kids that feeling too.
• Do a weekly library trip. It's pretty awesome. You get introduced to all kinds of books, and you also have a bit of a timeline for reading them (so if you get stuck in that "just one more" loop....you can break it a little quicker, maybe? ;-)).
• Let your kids see you reading. We are a species that learns so much by modeling. We watch the behaviors of other members of our species and learn how we ourselves should behave. If you're taking the time to read one or more chapters a day per this habit...let your kiddos see. It will work wonders.

Anyway, I know this is well-covered territory, but it's still so important to stress. How do you encourage literacy in your home?

Habit Helpers: Read a Chapter a Day: The continuing book versus e-reader debate

I was one of those people.

"I will never own an e-reader," I said.

"I love the feel of books, the look of them, the smell of them...no e-reader for me!" I said.

And then one Christmas, must have been about 2009, I unwrapped a Kindle e-reader from my parents. It wasn't the first generation--I think it was the next after that--and I was instantly in love. I went through a spell where I didn't buy physical books at all. I could hear a book I wanted, and instantly download it. Voilà!

I found it especially useful when my younger son was born. It's a topic for another day, but I really struggled with breastfeeding my older son. It wasn't even because of actual obstacles--it was purely a result of my own head and the pressures I put on myself. Nursing was bonding, and I didn't allow any distractions...not even the TV. I quickly found out that, especially during growth spurts, babies can.nurse.forever. With my older son, I just wanted it to be done so we could get on to other stuff. With my younger son, I committed myself to just making nursing part of our normal routine. That meant that, yes, it was great bonding time, but no, I wasn't spending the entire time staring lovingly into my baby's (usually closed anyway) eyes. My Kindle was my secret weapon. There was no stress or pressure when he was nursing and I was engaged in whatever I was reading (at the time, I had only just discovered Game of Thrones and started reading through the books, so...yes, he was nursing and I was awash in the intrigue of Westeros).

In the years since, I've reached a fairly happy balance between physical books and e-books (my spouse might disagree...he's pushing back on my desire to have a bookshelf in every single room of the house for some reason...). But some people still have really big objections to e-readers. Here's a few of them.

They say that e-readers don't encourage reading comprehension the way that physical books do.

This is usually based on a 2014 study that showed the people reading a short mystery story recalled the events better when they had read it in paper form than electronic. The researchers had a few hypotheses about this, centering around the idea that the tactile experience aids in memory formation and later recall.

This isn't without basis. We know that memories are a complex ever-shifting tapestry of everything about a moment--sights, smells, sounds, feelings, even balance.

However, I find myself wondering if this is simply a case where the human brain hasn't adapted yet. I also wonder (and I haven't read the study for myself, so I don't know if they explored this) whether they controlled for people who were regular e-readers versus those who aren't. For me, I don't find any difference between recalling what I've read on my Kindle and what I've read in my books. Recently, I finished a Cold Mountain hardcover and The Good Earth as an e-book. At certain points, I was reading both novels at the same time. I only finished Cold Mountain this week, and The Good Earth a week or so ago, but I'm able to recall both stories equally vividly, at least by my estimation.

The human brain was never wired for reading and writing. Those are skills the brain has adapted to over the ages. Perhaps e-reading will be one that we adapt to also.

Source: http://mic.com/articles/99408/science-has-great-news-for-people-who-read-actual-books

They say that you need to be able to read long sentences.

And they are right. But I think this is more something we struggle with as internet readers than e-readers. I don't know that I've ever clicked a link in one of my Kindle books.

I do find myself tempted when I am reading online to click through to every link that I see. I have to commit to reading the entire portion of text and then clicking back through to see what the links were that I was interested in.

Source: http://mic.com/articles/99408/science-has-great-news-for-people-who-read-actual-books

Screentime hurts sleep patterns.

This is also true. Indeed, in my own life, I'm trying to shift away from having screens on right until bedtime.

But scientists have noted that e-readers like the original Kindle, which have no backlighting, don't have this issue the way that other mediums, like reading on tablets or smartphones, do.

Source: http://www.medicaldaily.com/e-books-are-damaging-your-health-why-we-should-all-start-reading-paper-books-again-317212


Anyway, to wrap it all up, I suppose this is like any other facet of our lifestyles: moderation is the best path.

At the end of the day, what matters is that people are reading. Perhaps our brains will catch up to the technology in time.

Habit Helpers: Reading Effectively

Outside of my schooling, I was never a big fan of nonfiction reading. I'd gobble up fictional books, but I had to be really interested in a subject if I was going to be tempted to read a nonfiction text.

This began to shift last year. I'm not quite sure what caused the shift for me, personally, but it's pretty noticeable. This year, I've read 35 books so far. Twenty of them were nonfiction, fifteen were fiction. Right now, I'm reading one parenting book, one nonfiction book (A Demon-Haunted World), and one parenting book.

Reading nonfiction for pleasure was a little daunting at first. It took me a bit to get into a groove.

This is, naturally, my reading journal. The format changes from time to time, but it's typically some variation of this. These were notes taken while I was reading God Is Not Great.

When I'm reading, I like to jot down quotes that I find meaningful. I also make a note of ideas that I have for writing projects or blog posts, as well as any questions that come up and words that I don't know off the top of my head. Usually, like most folks, I can puzzle out the meaning from the context, but I also like to add them to my word journal with the definition.

I've read that there are six skills involved in reading effectively:

1. Predicting
2. Visualizing
3. Connecting
4. Questioning
5. Clarifying
6. Evaluating

You predict what's going to happen or what you're going to learn. You visualize what you are reading as you go. You connect what you are reading to other knowledge you already have (one of my personal favorites). You question what you are reading. You clarify what you do not understand, by rereading or by additional research. You evaluate both before you start to read--forming an opinion of what you expect from the reading--and afterwards--forming an opinion of the text itself.

I've become a strong advocate of reading for learning in non-scholastic environments. I find myself more curious and interested in the world around me since I've started committing to continuing to exercise my brain and not just entertain it. A quote that I ran across while doing some research for this week's habit that I liked reads:

Reading for learning requires a conscious effort to make links, understand opinions, research and apply what you learn to your studies.

I'm not applying it to my studies, but I find that the things that I am learning make the weirdest changes in my every day life.

As I'm consciously reading for learning, I find myself more critical of other media sources too. I'm questioning my favorite blogs and being a general pain in the ass, if we're being honest, but it's because I'm exercising academic muscles that I haven't used since college--and it's fun. Another quote from that site:

Reading becomes not simply a way to see what is said but to recognise and interpret what is said, taking into account subtleties such as bias, assumption and the perspectives of the author.

It's that idea that's sinking into my everyday web surfing and conversations.

Habit Helpers: Read a chapter of a book a day Reading is FUNdamental

I like dumb puns. This headline is an ode to that. I'd apologize, but I'm not really sorry, so it'd be pointless.

In 1978, Gallup conducted a poll of Americans that showed that 8% had not read a book in the last year. In 2014, Pew conducted the same poll, and found that 28% of Americans had not read a single book in the year 2013.

That's a huge jump.

Now, I'm going to state a disclaimer upfront: I don't think this is necessarily the crisis that we paint it as. People are still reading. They're just reading blogs and websites and tweets and Facebook posts. But there are benefits to reading books, in particular, and we'll explore that in more depth maybe later this week.

Today, I'd like to start our read a chapter a day habit with a reminder about a few of the benefits of reading. I found a list of 26 Major Advantages To Reading More Books And Why 3 in 4 People Are Being Shut Out of Success, and I thought I would share a few of my favorites from the list. Check out the link for the entirety.

1. Reading is an active mental process – Unlike TV, books make you to use your brain. By reading, you think more and become smarter.

Reading is an active mental process. Indeed there's some research to indicate that reading is an activity that can help prevent Alzheimer's:

Staying cognitively active throughout life—via social engage­ment or intellectual stimulation—is associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Several observational studies link continued cognitive health with social engagement through work, volunteering, or living with someone. Mentally stimulating activities such as reading books and magazines, going to lectures, and playing games are also linked to keeping the mind sharp.

Notice that this says "throughout life". Using your brain isn't something that you can start in retirement and hope to protect it and keep it useful--it has to become a daily habit early on.

3. Improves your vocabulary – Remember in elementary school when you learned how to infer the meaning of one word by reading the context of the other words in the sentence? You get the same benefit from book reading. While reading books, especially challenging ones, you will find yourself exposed to many new words you wouldn’t be otherwise.

I keep a word journal. As I am reading, I make a note of words that I don't know, then I look them up and record them in my journal. I love words, and this delights me.

But reading, even for folks without word journals, does play a huge role in building vocabularies:

Research has shown that past the 4th grade, the number of words a person knows depends primarily on how much time they spend reading (Hayes & Ahrens, 1988; Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Nagy & Herman, 1987; Stanovich, 1986).  In fact, by the time they reach adulthood, people who make a habit of reading have a vocabulary that is about four times the size of those who rarely or never read.

That is absolutely a TON of words...

4. Gives you a glimpse into other cultures and places – What is your favorite vacation spot? I would bet you read a lot about that destination. The more information the better. Books can expand your horizons by letting you see what other cities and countries have to offer before you visit them.

As a parent, this is one of the aspects of reading with my children that I try to leverage as often as possible.

When you open a book, you open a window to a whole different world. You can pick worlds that look just like your own...or you can opt to take a look at something and someone very different. That positive contribution of diversity can't be understated. It's something educators are stressing too:

Consistent exposure to positive role models is another excellent way to emphasize respect and admiration for the diverse student's own culture. All too often, students are exposed to ethnic stereotypes on television and in movies. Providing diverse students with role models who demonstrate exceptional leadership qualities and make social contributions in a non-stereotypical way helps students recognize the limitless ways in which they can have a positive impact on society. 

These are three of my personal top reasons to read, but there's a ton more on the list that I agree with (although some seem a wee bit repetitive).

Take a look, and drop me a comment below with what you are reading!

Habit Helper: Devil's Advocate, Day 5

So I bounced back yesterday with a topic that I have a firm opinion on, and then I took the opposite stance.

It started with the results of the March of Dimes Prematurity Report Card, where our state rated a D. Then there was this comment on the Facebook feed:

SC isn't responsible for premature births...the individual is. So hopefully they consider the age of the mothers as well as the lifestyles...and no I didn't read the article...just commenting on the headline...but heard it on the news. I also know that healthy people can have preemies, too, but statistically, they aren't really separating the cases.

So I decided to look into it. Why not, right?

I'm doing this "live" so to speak, while I'm doing the research. That's a little different than last time, when I looked at the research and then came up with the blog post, but I think it'll capture the process really organically.

Okay. Onward we go.