“Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents” — Epictetus.
I’ve been guilty of this. at one point I was reading 2-3 personal development books per month. While it wasn’t a waste of time, I was definitely mistaking the act of reading with real progress.
It got to the point where I was looking forward to checking off a box saying that I finished another book. There was so much good information that I didn’t take action on because I was more obsessed with reading the next book.
But I intend on going back over the books I’ve read to fully internalize and execute on its contents.
So don’t “read” books. Use them.