Postpone Your Google Search to Gain Extra Wisdom.
The Bed of Procrustes is not an ordinary book. It makes you think deep about luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. Other than this book, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb has also written Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, and Antifragile. All books are gems and will surprise you by exposing self-delusions you have been living with but you have no time to recognize that.
Years back I had this habit - while reading a book if I don’t understand a term or keyword I used to instantly google it; but later I started writing down those keywords on a paper for later research. So I started postponing google search. It turned out to be a big advantage as I started exploring different subjects and authors. That’s how I have read more books and googled less, many books got selected based on those keywords and phrases that I tagged under “To Google Later”
How Instant Gratification of Google Search Result is Killing Your Creativity
Take this scenario. You come across some new phrase with a difficult word, you go ahead and search it on Google immediately. You take a look at the links on the top of search result. You open one or two and start power-browsing those pages. You cursory read first few sentences then you search that specific term using browser search feature and jump directly to the paragraph where that particular word is. You read a few more sentences here and there and you are satisfied that you know it. Then you are back to the original task, and then another word and another google search and so on.
Speed reading and instant google search is killing our ability to decide what is important to retain and what is not even worth searching on the internet as it just breaks the flow. Today we text while crossing a street, we tweet from our washroom and we can’t have a meal without checking 🔗our cell phone.
With such instant gratification of Google search method, what you miss is holistic context and deserved importance of the subject that you are trying to grasp. If something is really interesting and worth-researching-more you need to pursue it further, may be a reference book, google advanced search, and look out for the influencers on the subject. In quick search mode you don’t get the holistic idea about the subject, even if you think you got it but your mind can’t retain it for the further use.
Though postponing google search might not help you in all the scenarios like if you need some information quickly for further immediate action. But if you are reading a book on a complex subject it is better to write it down what particular keywords or phrases you want to Google search later.
How Postponing Google Search Helps?
Most people when they search on Google they stay on the first page of the search result. Many people also suffer from compulsive googling for things they know but need constant re-validation. Some people even search their thoughts and feeling at Google to see what comes up.
But if you control you habits and don’t Google for each and everything, a lot can be attained by sustained and uninterrupted work. If you come across some topic you are not familiar of- better to note it down.
Memory and focus go together so don’t scatter your attention, and later come back to the Google search.
You have listed down the keywords that you need to Google search. Now you can holistically research those topics along with multiple contexts. You can take notes for further references. You won’t be surprised if you find that those keywords appear more important now than what you earlier thought about. Once you are familiar with the subject you can relate it to other relevant topics of your interest and have your own viewpoints around it.
So instead of just getting popular and obvious information from the top search pages, which are based on google page rank and search engine optimization, you will get more thoughtful information if you go a little not-linear in your search.
Keep a notepad or use your favorite to-do-list mobile app and add a category or tag named “Google Later”.
