Books vs courses
When to read a book, and when to do a course?
Today Medium served up a blog post called “Stop buying courses, read these books instead”.
When I was starting my coaching practice last year I asked some experienced coaches which qualification to pursue. One said, “Angela, you have tons of experience and the right instincts. Just read some books on coaching and you’ll be all set.”
I didn’t take this advice — I did a Life Coaching certification and loved it — but it’s stayed with me. Why, indeed, do a course, when you could read a book and be done with it? Especially with such finite time available.
Right now there’s no decision to make: I have a five month-old baby and can’t read a book without falling asleep. Assuming that’s not a problem for you, some quick tips to decide whether to choose a book or a course:
How proactive are you about engaging?
Courses might be more time-consuming, but they force you to engage with the material much more actively. This works well for me, even if I only have 15 minutes at a time. There are assignments and peer grading, and deadlines, to keep me making progress. Books can have assignments too, but are you motivated enough to do them?
How much do you want a variety of voices?
Often in a book you’re getting an argumentation made by one person. You’re spending 15 hours with that person in your brain. In a course, though they’re usually curated by a small group, you often find references and resources that speak for themselves.
Is there even a course for that..?
Not every topic has a course that fits exactly what you need to learn. I ended up pulling together a ton of different courses, books and projects into my own programme because I wanted to go deep into this niche.
Return On Investment
My self-made programme has allocated time for two books: Building a Second Brain (comes out in August 2022), and Bullet Journaling. Their creators do both have courses, but they’re costly and niche. My bet is that these reading materials will help me get better at knowledge management and self-reflection, at a lower cost and time commitment.
Are you building a tribe?
Courses often have some aspect of community or connection, and can be great for accountability. If you want that, a cohort-based course could be right for you. Or, if you prefer a book, you could get on Goodreads and build a community of readers — which might be harder work, and more hit-and-miss, but definitely convenient and cheaper.
We’re here to learn — so if you DISAGREE with the above, great! Please add a comment so we can grow wiser together.
Shout-out to parenting books
My (cobbled-together) parenting style has been influenced by books I read while designing my child care social enterprise, Jaleesa.
At the time I didn’t have kids (of course: now I can’t read without falling asleep, see above), and I was compensating by voraciously reading parenting books.
A lot of their sound advice and insight has stuck.
Shout out to these ones in particular:
The Whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel
The How To Talk series by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik
Your recommendations are welcome in the comments!
(Also, more info on my DIY Master’s is here. Parenting is not on the programme — though my kids might say it should be…)
