Developing good reading habit

I m usually asked by many to give suggestions on how to develop a reading habit or what to read. Let me try to pen down some of the things I feel one should know

• Don't read daily newspaper (in paper format). Consume it digitally. And even digitally don't spend lot of time browsing through the websites of major Indian newspapers.
• Use RSS reader. And curate the content you receive. After spending sometime, you would be able to receive and consume a very personalized content which would make your time spent on reading effective. Will tell in a separate blog on how I use my RSS reader, like which content I follow, how i read, which software I use - since it is a rather huge topic by itself.
• Before reading a non-fiction book, read few good reviews written on it. And ask yourself what answers are you seeking from the book. Read the content. And when reading for the first time, limit the time of your reading (usually between 3 to 5 hours). After the first read reflect upon the book. And then re-read it again. Usually most non-fiction book needn't be read from start to end. Pick any chapter or page you like and start reading. There is nothing wrong with reading in a disorderly fashion, in fact most of the times it tends to improve your reading effectiveness.
• Avoid reading General Knowledge books, encyclopedia for fun or time-pass. Refer encyclopedia (eg, Wikipedia) only on need to know basis.
• Reading is not a solitary activity. It is something that should be done with a social group. Discuss about what you are reading with your social circle and also get recommendations on articles and books. Quality of reading habit greatly depends on your circle and hence try to carefully develop and nurture it.

Forecasting

Still, I have no idea what I should be writing. Or to be more precise what can I write. I seem to be suffering from rather low esteem recently. Instead of ranting like yesterday, I have decided to republish a blog which I wrote of Immutable. The idea written below is inspired from a business book on forecasting. I don't remember its name, but if anyone knows it please tell it to me.

Let me use the following terminology:

Prediction - It is a statement of what will happen.

Forecast - It is a statement of what you think will happen, based on certain assumptions about the world - assumptions about the  external environment and about your own future actions and those of others.

I have seen many people severely underestimate the importance of study of probable futures.

Forecasting is a very important tool for making any sort of important decisions. Actually, it is impossible to take any decision without employing at least some very rudimentary forecasting technique. The decision making skill would improve greatly if one learns more about it. 

For now, let me tell you some of the points, which I think are important and feel that most people are unaware of it.

• A forecast, if it is to be an effective tool, does not have to be a good prediction of the  future. The very fact that the forecasted future might not come about - because the assumptions might be wrong or have been changed - as a result of decisions you make based on forecasts - that makes forecasting useful. A perfect prediction is perfectly useless. 

• Bad forecasts are worse than no forecasts. If you have no forecast, you will be at least be alert; you will always have a lookout posted. A poor forecast, on the other hand, can foster dangerous complacency or misinform decision making. Forecasts help us to work out what to look for - they distort our perception. If we have not contemplated that something might happen we may fail to even notice it until it is too late.

• Unlike historic information which we only need to collect, forecasting information must be created; and the process of creation is very complicated. Simply forecasting better is not enough; you have to know what you can do with the information if the picture the forecast paints is not what you want, so we need to understand the link with decision-making as well.