I heard a guest on a radio show the other day using the “7 plus or minus 2” rule to underline the paramount importance of reading and of having a broad general culture.
For those not familiar with this rule, it stipulates that the human brain can only apprehend between 5 and 9 “things” or “concepts” at any given time. It was first introduced by a cognitive scientist called George A. Miller (look at this wikipedia article for more details, including links to related urban legends and attempts to apply this rule to software engineering).
Back to the radio show, the guest said that without at least a basic knowledge of historical events, Russian society, the Orthodox religion, warfare, etc., a reader’s mind and short-term memory are just overwhelmed by the “context” of Tolstoi’s War and Peace to really appreciate the values and qualities of this literary work.
This comment resonates strongly with me because I believe it is the same for most other human activities, and especially so for knowledge workers. The world we live in and the challenges we face are so complex that we need to equip our brains with as much prior knowledge and insights as possible, so that we can then focus our mental energy not at interpreting the commonalities of the situations we find ourselves into, but at solving the specific problems and leveraging the unique opportunities that they present to us.
That is why I make reading challenging and “mind expanding” books an integral part of my daily routine. That is also why I encourage my colleagues and employees to read as much as possible and to take advantage of every opportunity to experiment and to learn.
Happy Reading to You!
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