Don't judge advice by its size

I recently finished a 500 page book and felt very meh about it.

It wasn't bad book. It was rather entertaining at times, but the reason I read it was to learn about business and marketing. Of those it only had a couple of good ideas. Ones could have easily been a couple of articles.

Last weekend I started reading a 187 page book on a similar topic. A quarter of the way in and just about every page has a mark for something I learned or can do that I haven't seen anywhere else.

1/4th the time and easily 2x or 4x the value.

Everything you consume has a cost and a value.

For most people, the time needed is a higher cost than the monetary cost. Time spent consuming this thing is time you couldn't use on that other thing.

Its value will depend on what you're trying to get out of it. Are you learning about a new marketing tactic? How to deal with organization growing pains? Or just learning for some entertaining stories? All are valuable, but only you can decide how valuable.

Find where the value is for you. Then judge the thing's cost based on that. Was it worth the time?

For my goals with that 500 page book? No.

For that 187 page one? So far, yes.

Eric Davis

P.S. I'm finding more and more that the deeper into subjects I get, the more I rely on shorter, more focused sources.