LII-INTj: tips on reading and studying new material

[UDP]

I struggled with reading new material in the past, and this helped me:


Don't even try to read it.
Just to an outline, and an overview.
Get the intuitive concepts first and then connect them with Ti.


What I tried to do in the past was read things first, which would bore me to no end, because I don't really care about elaborating on points -- I want pieces and concepts, Ti material. I can put them together perfectly well myself. Additional information is necessary if I don't get it, but I am finding that generally speaking I don't.

I announce all of this because for whatever reason, when reading texts in the past, I always found it incredibly .... unpleasant. In some ways I almost want to say that my Fi role of "well, that is how you read" got in the way, which is unusual, but maybe something to consider.


Bottom line: hunt for Ti material first, scan. And then put the pieces together afterwards. Setting up a parameter or outline first, and then flooding it and mastering it works much better for me than reading something straight through. Much more agreeable (Si HA), and you can monitor progress better as well, (so you know when to say catch yourself for drifting off and thinking your own thoughts, and say, "look, we've got XX% left to do").

That's all. I doubt many LIIs have issues like this, but it struck me as odd. One last tip: actively seeking new information -- Te -- think of it as a means for health, a mental exercise. "Improvement of the mind through extensive reading", you could say. Don't let the MBTI INTJ problem of "I don't want to consider another viewpoint" get in the way of doing a good job; Se polr and Si HA correspondingly.

[oyburger]

Boredom has never been an issue with me and reading unless it's a book or subject that holds no interest for me in the begining, but the information must be obtained.
If that's the case, outlines or summeries are usually very helpful. Often I'll find a point I want to know more about, when before I believed the subject to be completely useless to me. Taking breaks is helpful too, though that's something I'm not apt to do.

[Blaze]

The best books I've read are ones recommended by my brother who is an intj. A couple include:

The Fourth Turning
Collapse
Slaves in the Family

Each of these books shifted my perspective quite a bit.

[Ms. Kensington]

I also have some trouble with reading comprehension. I do much better with diagrams or with fluff reading where any important information pops out at you, and so you would need to spend less time doing actual reading.

[UDP]

[Ms. Kensington]

yeah. its very odd, that the performance would be affected by the method. tests say i am good at comprehension. But sometimes someone is talking to me or pointing something out in a business letter to me, and I can't really register it unless i am focusing. very, very odd. I have tried to figure it out. But in general i think it seems right that an INTj will have to make conceptual sense of what he's reading, or they will take longer to get it. Since you don't need the fluff its presence makes the important things easy to see.

[oyburger]

yeah. its very odd, that the performance would be affected by the method. tests say i am good at comprehension. But sometimes someone is talking to me or pointing something out in a business letter to me, and I can't really register it unless i am focusing. very, very odd.

This is me exactly, it's so frustrating! I won all kinds of awards in school for reading comrehension (yes, I am a dork), but as soon as someone starts trying to explain something to me outloud, especially in a work atmosphere, it's like my mind goes blank.

[Ms. Kensington]

yeah i wonder how to make it better.