“Readers are leaders and leaders are readers.”

Yes, but that dictum can be misleading. One does not become a leader simply by reading. And one does not become a better leader simply by reading more.

But what about those successful people who post their reading lists on social media near the end of the year? “Here are the 623 books I read this year,” they proclaim to their wide-eyed admirers. I’ll grant that there some people intelligent enough to read that many books and profit from it. But I think those people are few and far between.

And I am not one of them.

Reading serves many purposes, but the purpose of the best kind of reading—the kind that improves you as a person—is to help you think. And if you are reading so much that you are not thinking, you need to read less, not more.

In saying this, I’m in good company. In his essay “Of Studies,” Francis Bacon counsels us to read “to weigh and consider” — an exercise that takes time and mental effort. “Some books,” he continues, “are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

Again, the purpose of reading is not to swell your brain with facts, much less to give you a cause to boast, but to discourse with great ideas, and in so doing, to raise you above the level you were. Not all books have that element of greatness, and even those that do possess them only in some parts. (This is, by the way, one reason why I think we should feel no obligation to finish a book that is proving itself to be a waste of time. Get what you need out of a book, then get out of the book!)

Another author hammers this point with even more force: “The passion for reading which many pride themselves on as a precious intellectual quality is in reality a defect; it differs in no wise from the other passions that monopolize the soul. . . . The mind is dulled, not fed, by inordinate reading” (A. G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life).

Of course, the title of this post must be qualified. You must read—a lot, perhaps— to stay current in your discipline. But don’t panic that you aren’t keeping up with all the tweets, all the blogs, all the new books.  If you are reading so much that you have little time for deep reflection, then read less and reflect more. After all, the ideas we think are new are usually just old ones recently remembered.

Center on the most important books.

Most of all, learn to think well.