# Reading must be followed by deep processing > The _Barbell Method_ is a phrase coined by Nassim Taleb. It means that you make sure that the majority of your investment is safe while you make small but very risky bets. You combine safety with the possibility of high revenue. The trick is that you floor the possible loss while leaving the possible revenue unlimited. Reading is one of the most efficient ways to acquire new information. However, simply being exposed to information once is not enough. If we do not act upon this information, it is mostly useless. Therefore, reading must be followed by the processing of the relevant bits of knowledge we found. A possible method is to swifly read a book once while marking the passages which are either useful, or difficult to understand. Then, we should read it again, but only those specific parts. This time, we should make notes, think about their content and connect them to previous notes in a [[Zettelkasten]]. That way, we do not lose much time with books which do not offer significant pieces of knowledge since they will have only few useful parts, and we can allot more time to dense, insight-packed books whose content deserves it. --- ## 📚 References - Sascha. 'The Barbell Method of Reading'. Zettelkasten Method, 25 May 2018, <https://www.zettelkasten.de/posts/barbell-method-reading/>.