Hello, my name’s Dave and I’m an addict.  I’m hooked on reading on how to better myself. It’s a habit that takes many forms; from the quick high of perusing the latest issue of Real Simple (swiped from my girlfriend’s bedside table) to the constant jonesing that keeps me surfing the Internet at work—checking up on sites like LifeHacker, ZenHabits, and 43Folders.  But the main focus of my compulsion is the mainlining of self-improvement books.

My shelf is loaded with titles whose spines profess that within their pages is the knowledge to help me become a more effective person, run a marathon, get organized, write a comic book, manage my time, and get started financially in life.  And if book sales are indicative of anything, it looks like I’m not alone.  It seems that the largest (and busiest) sections in bookstores are filled with guides and manuals instructing readers on how to accomplish goals or take charge of themselves.

Due to my extensive dependence on self-help books over the years on, I’ve picked up a few skills and techniques that had nothing to do with how to improve myself, but rather on how to read the material.  Here are some tips from what I’ve learned:

• Give into that temptation to frantically flip through it.

So, you’ve recognized your problem (or goal) and have set out to find the right book to help you out.  You browsed, asked for recommendations, and spent hours reading the summarizing back cover copy of several different titles, looking for just the right one, until store security tells you to leave (Everyone does this, right? It’s not just me, right?).  And as soon as you walk away from the cashier, your initial urge is to rip into it, frantically flipping the pages and scanning the text, looking for that one simple answer that will be the key to complete salvation.

I say, give in.  Complex problems have complex solutions, so you won’t find that silver bullet solution, but because the self-help industry favors a style abundant with summarizing in bold text and bullet points it will give you a good overall sense of the book before you even read the introduction.

• Read all the way through and don’t do ANYTHING (unless the book tells you to).

Once that initial excitement as died, you now have to sit down and read the damn thing.  One problem with a book meant to inspire and motivate is that a particularly stirring chapter can send you off, half-cocked, to try out the advice.  But unless it’s something that the author tells you to do—don’t do it.  It’s the classic cliché of fatherly wisdom.  You can almost see some sensible 1950’s father, pipe dangling from his mouth, gently admonishing his son, sitting over the crime scene of a failed attempt to build a model airplane, with the aphorism that  “you should always read the directions all the way through first.”  It’s still true today.

• Take notes.

It sounds pretty simple, but sometimes the simplest ideas are the best solutions.  I like to keep a pad of post-it notes on hand when I’m reading—so I can bookmark a page, summarize an important passage, or even copy down an inspiring quote and post it somewhere around my apartment to keep me motivated.

• Figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Despite what most self-help writers may claim about their advice, not everything works for everyone.  So it’s important to keep in mind that a whole program designed to help you change your life might not really work for you.  But that’s not to say that certain aspects or steps can’t be useful on their own. You have to be willing to take apart a whole step-by-step process and gleam the gems of advice that are actually helpful from those that aren’t.   Which brings me to another useful tip:

• Don’t be afraid to mix and match ideas.

One of the great things about reading a plethora of self-improvement titles is that I’ve amassed so many different ideas on how to better myself that I’m able to mix advice from a variety of sources to create my own custom self-help program. In fact, different tips from different books usually end up complementing each in some way.

• Never get rid of a self-improvement book!

I think this is the most important pearl of wisdom I have to impart.  For whatever reason you’re done with a self-help book—whether you finished reading it, didn’t like it, or couldn’t understand it—always keep it.  Sometimes the reader isn’t ready to take the advice or sometimes the strategy doesn’t fit the person’s specific situation at that time, but later on down the road (maybe years later) he or she can pull it off the bookshelf and it will suddenly click.  And even if you fully adopt the principles of a book, it’s always a good idea to reread it every now and then as a refresher.