Not only in a professional context, but also for private purposes it does make sense to actively read your books/articles. Try to apply some analytical reading, a concept I’ve read about for the first time in How to read a book (book). The idea is to interact with the content you’re reading about: Ask questions, try to link ideas in your mind, make notes, lookup complex definitions. The worst thing you can do is to just passively read something, finish it and then you move on to your next reading. — Note taking in 2021