Is procrastination ruining your reading?
Aun's Weekly Review - 22nd March 2021
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Welcome to this week’s edition of the ‘Weekly Review Newsletter’ by Aun. In this week’s review, I will be discussing reading as a form of procrastination and how to approach reading.
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Is procrastination ruining your reading?
What came first the chicken or the egg?
If you’re anything like me questions like these are whimsical and are a nice addition to a pleasant conversation. But, at some level the answer doesn’t matter and the question itself remains interesting. Like many of the great questions of life the answer isn’t clear, and we spend our lives debating the answer.
I like to think the same about the question of reading and procrastination. Do you procrastinate by reading, or do you procrastinate having read?
Procrastination is an interesting concept to me. Many people avoid procrastination because they feel like they should be ‘doing something’. What that doing pertains to doesn’t matter as long as it’s action. This is wrong in my mind. Planned action is much more effective than action done without thought. In the same way that planned time for doing nothing, is not the same as procrastination. Your goal when reading is to learn, plan, act and reflect. You cannot prioritise one over the others.
When someone is fearing that they’re procrastinating by reading, their over-emphasising learning rather than action. When they’re planning, but not taking action on the ideas they’ve learnt, they’re over-emphasising the planning but not the action. If they’re forgetting what they’re learning, then they are acting without reflecting.
Life is ultimately about balance. Ying and Yang. Order and Chaos. To emphasise this point, I came across this quote by Marcus Aurelius over the weekend:
“All things have their accomplishment in accordance with the nature of the Whole.” (Book 6, 9)
Without an understanding of the whole, you’re unable to accomplish anything. To understand the whole you need to take into account what the core principles of the teachings are and work to apply them to your own life, with suitable time for reflection.
Procrastination is less about avoiding, and more about an over-emphasis on perfection. To find harmony with your reading, find a balance between learning, planning, acting and reflecting.
5 Eye-Opening Books (Book Recommendations)
I’ve read many books that’ve illuminated my mind. It’s one of the side-effects of reading more. The more you’re exposed to new ideas and principles, the more you’re left astounded by some of the points within the book.
I wanted to share 5 Books that opened my eyes after I’d read them.
‘Factfulness’ by Hans, Ola and Anna Rosling
The way we look at the world is determined by our perspective. Those that are optimistic, generally see a world that is improving. Whereas those that are pessimistic, see a world sinking into oblivion. This book is about looking past these feelings, and becoming more aware of facts, rather than personal opinion.
‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah Harari
This book is an analysis into our growth as a civilisation, written with a broad perspective. It’s a mix of biology, history, sociology and anthropology, that states a perspective on how and why our civilisation has developed this way.
This title is vague, but accurate. The author discusses how we’ve shifted our view in society away from community, to the individual. The rise of the internet, and social media specifically, has put attention on the individual rather than the community. The reasons for this are discussed widely in the book and are interesting to think about.
‘Black Box Thinking’ by Matthew Syed
How we view failure is one of the main causes of our eventual success, whatever your definition of success might be. This proves true for the individual as it does for society. This book is about changing our view of failure in society. Economic and societal growth is built upon failure, and we need to create a community that welcomes that opportunity to fail and learn.
‘Moneyland’ by Oliver Bullough
If you weren’t aware of the lengths that individuals and corporations go to shield their money from governments and institutions, this book will tell you the truth. Our system is complicit in allowing crooks to hide money and our governments even aid them in doing so should it fit their interests.
Author Interview
Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Kehinde Andrews. Kehinde is the UK's first Professor of Black Studies, at Birmingham City University, where he led the establishment of the first Black Studies programme in Europe. We discussed his book, ‘The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World.’
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Have a great week!
Aun.