We read a lot. I don't know anyone who's wise who doesn't read a lot. But that's not enough: You have to have a temperament to grab ideas and do sensible things.
– Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio)
I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.
– Warren Buffett (Trades, Portfolio)
This is a self-reflection article in which I will share with readers my struggle with what I call the “too much reading, too little thinking” syndrome. The syndrome is rather self-explanatory. Very often we read and read and read but fail to synthesize what we read. The hard-to-swallow reality is that doing so is barely different from not reading at all, which I have personally experienced many times.
It may help to find the root of this syndrome biologically. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman pointed out that there are two systems in our mind. I know many readers are already familiar with the concept, but let’s review them for the purpose of discussion:
System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control.
System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations.
System 1 effortlessly originating impressions and feelings that are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. The automatic operations of System 1 generate surprisingly complex patterns of ideas, but only the slower System 2 can construct thoughts in an orderly series of steps.
Reading without thinking, in my opinion, is mostly the work of System 1. Reading is not an effortless activity but our minds do work automatically and quickly most of the time while we just read. Thinking, on the other hand, has to be divided into categories. Some thinking is near effortless and automatic, which is the work of System 1. The real value-added thinking and synthesizing is undoubtedly and can only be the work of System 2.
In my earlier article on Nestle (NESN, Financial) (link), I gave an example of the sign of capacity to suffer illustrated by how Nestle’s CEO responded to an analyst’s question on short-term financial results. I was able to spot that because I read the transcript with a purpose in my mind – to spot signs of capacity to suffer. You may find it interesting that I read that exact same transcript more than once and the first time I read it, I just underlined and highlighted some stuff, which was very easy to do. But I remembered almost nothing and created little value the first time I read the transcript. The amount of highlights and underlines may give the wrong impression that I was more than just reading it. It may also serve to give me some personal comfort that basically serves to fool myself – you did the reading already because look at all those nice highlights, underlines and notes on the margin. But if you ask me what I learned from the transcript after the first time I read it, I would not be able to give you a satisfactory answer.
It’s frustrating to realize this but better late than never. I’ve had countless experiences with reading annual reports and books, only to find out a few days later that I absolutely learned very little. I read a lot, but I didn’t grab the big ideas and do sensible things. This struck me big when I was having a conversation with a friend about Munger’s recommended reading list. We were talking about the book "Deep Simplicity,"Â which I have read from the first page to the last. When my friend asked me what are some of the big ideas I learned from this book, my brain froze.
I can’t remember the source of this anecdote. Someone was sitting next to Robert Cialdini on a plane ride, and he observed that Cialdini would write a chapter summary on paper after he finished the chapter. Alice Schroeder talked about how Buffett used to hand write a lot of notes and financial highlights from reading the annual reports of the companies he followed. He would also think about how to put all the information together, which led him do the scuttlebutt work.
Bill Gates (Trades, Portfolio) is famous for taking a week off twice a year when he just thinks without any interruption. By “actively disconnecting and looking at everything from 50,000 feet,” he is able to “effectively reflect, reset, and clearly rethink my goals and aspirations.” For each “Think Week,” he “creates a life to-do list, does a lot of research and thinks through big ideas and challenges deeply. Going through this process has been enlightening.”
The examples from Cialdini, Buffett and Gates are inspirational. My game plan is to set up certain amount of time during a day to force myself to think. I will also need to take summary notes with legal pads on the reports and books I read. I am thankful for the opportunity to write articles on GuruFocus as writing is a great way to force myself to think better and more clear. For those readers who haven’t started writing, I encourage you start. You don’t have to publish your articles to the public. Simply keeping a journal will be sufficient.
This is a start of a new journey. I would greatly appreciate if any of the readers can share your thoughts and experiences related to the topic.
