how much do you read?
For most of my adult life, I read about five books a year, if I was lucky. I’d read a couple of vacations and always had a few slow-readers sitting around on my nightstand for months.
You are reading: Read lots of books
And last year I found myself reading 50 books. I’m on my way to 100 this year. I’ve never felt so creatively alive in all areas of my life. I feel more interesting, I feel like a better parent, and my writing output has increased dramatically. amplifying my reading speed has been the domino that has overturned many others.
I’m disappointed I didn’t do it sooner.
why did i wait 20 years?
Well, our world today is designed to skim rather than dive deep, so it took me a while to identify the specific changes that spiked my reading rate. none of them had anything to do with how fast he read. in fact, I’m a pretty slow reader.
Here’s my advice for including more reading in your own life, based on the behaviors I changed:
centralize reading in your home. In 1998, psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues conducted their famous “Radish Chocolate Chip Cookie” experiment. They divided the test subjects into three groups and asked them not to eat anything for three hours before the experiment. Group 1 was given chocolate chip cookies and radishes and told they could only eat the radishes. Group 2 was given chocolate chip cookies and radishes, and told they could eat whatever they wanted. group 3 was given no food. the researchers then had the three groups try to solve an impossible puzzle, to see how long they would last. it’s no surprise that group 1, those who had spent all their willpower to stay away from the cookies, gave in first.
you and your team series
improve yourself
See Also: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – Audiobook – Audible.com: English
what does this have to do with reading? I think of having a television in your great room as a plate of chocolate chip cookies. so many delicious TV shows tempt us, reducing our willpower to tackle books.
roald dahl’s poem “television” says it all: “so please, oh please, we beg, we pray / throw away your television / and instead, you may install / a beautiful bookcase on the wall”.
Last year, my wife and I moved our only TV into our dark, unfinished basement and installed a bookcase on the wall by the front door. now we see it, walk by it and touch it dozens of times a day. And TV stays down unless the Toronto Blue Jays are in the playoffs or Netflix launches a new season of House of Cards.
Commit publicly. In his influential book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini shares a psychology study that shows that once people place their bets at the racetrack, they have much more confidence in your horse’s chances than they were just before you made the bet. he goes on to explain how commitment is one of the six great weapons of social influence. So why can’t we think of ourselves as racehorses? bet on reading by opening an account on goodreads or reco, making friends with a few co-workers or friends, and then updating your profile every time you read a book. Or create an email list to send short reviews of the books you read. I do exactly that every month, with my monthly book club email. I stole the idea from bestselling author ryan holiday, who has a great reading list.
Find some trusted curated lists. Related to the above, the publishing industry publishes over 50,000 books a year. Do you have time to review 1000 new books a week? no one does so we use proxies like amazon reviews. but should we get our reading lists from retailers? If you’re like me and love the “staff picks” wall at independent bookstores, there’s nothing better than getting someone’s favorite books. Finding some trusted and curated lists can be as simple as the email lists I mentioned, but with a little research you can likely find the one that totally aligns with your tastes. Some of the lists that I personally like are: The Bill Gates Reading List; Derek Sivers’ Reading List; and the tim ferriss list, where he has collected recommendations from many of his podcast guests.
Change your mindset about quitting. It’s one thing to stop reading a book and feel bad about it. another is to put down a book and be proud of it. all you have to do is change your mindset. just say, “ugh! now i’ve finally got rid of this brick to make room for that gem i’m about to read next.” An article that can help enable this mindset is “The Tail End” by Tim Urban, which paints a shocking picture of how many books you have left to read in your lifetime. once you’ve fully digested that number, you’ll want to cut down the vines to reveal the oases ahead.
I put down three or four books for every book I read to the end. I do the “first five pages test” before I buy any book (checking tone, pacing, and language) and then free myself if I need to stop halfway.
Take a “news fast” and funnel your reading dollars. I subscribed to the new york times and five magazine for years. I rotated subscriptions to keep them current, and I always loved getting a crisp new issue in the mail. after returning from a long vacation where I finally had some time to get lost in books, I began to realize that this shorter, choppier nature of reading prevented me from digging deeper. so I canceled all my subscriptions.
See Also: How Many Chapters Are There in the Bible? – Beliefnet
Besides freeing the shared mind, what does canceling all the news feeds do? for me, it saved over $500 per year. that can afford about 50 books a year. What would I rather have 10 or 20 years later: a treasured collection of books that I’ve read and learned over the years… or a stack of old newspapers? And let’s not forget your local library. If you download the library extension for your browser, you can see what books and e-books are available for free just around the corner.
Triple your abandonment rate. I realized that for years I had thought of my bookshelf as a fixed object and something artistic: there it is, sitting next to the vases of flowers! now I think of it as a dynamic organism. always moving always changing. In any given week, I’ll probably add about five books to the shelf and get rid of three or four. books arrive through our neighborhood lending libraries, a fantastic used bookstore, local independent and chain stores, and of course, online outlets. Books sell out when we pass them on to friends, sell them to the used bookstore, or leave them at the lending library. this dynamism means that I am always walking towards the shelf, never just walking past it. As a result, I read more.
read physical books. You might be wondering why I don’t just read eBooks on a mobile device, saving me all the time and effort it takes to bring books in and out of the house. . In an age where our movie, film, and photo collections are going digital, there’s something fundamental about having an organically growing book collection in the home. if you want to dig deeper, maybe it’s a good physical representation of the evolution and changes in your mind as you read. (perhaps that’s why my wife refuses to allow my collections across the shelf from her). And since so many of us stare at screens all day, it can be a welcome change of pace to hold an actual book in your hands.
Reapply the 10,000 step rule. A good friend once told me a story that really stuck with me. He said that Stephen King had advised people to read about five hours a day. my friend said, “you know, that’s silly. who can do that? But then, years later, he found himself in Maine on vacation. she was waiting in line outside a movie theater with his girlfriend, and who should be waiting in front of him? Stephen King! his nose was in a book the whole time in line. When they entered the theater, Stephen King was still reading as the lights dimmed. when the lights came on, he immediately opened his book. he even read when he was leaving. Now, I have not confirmed this story with Stephen King. but I think the message conveyed by this story is important. basically, you can read a lot more. there are minutes hidden in every corner of the day, and they add up to a lot of minutes.
In a way, it’s like the 10,000 step rule. walk through the grocery store, park in the back of the lot, chase your kids around the house, and wham: 10,000 steps.
It’s the same with reading.
When did I read those five books a year for most of my life? on vacation or during long flights. “oh, there’s a lot of downtime coming up,” you’d think. “better grab some books.”
When do I read now? all time. some pages here some pages there. I have a book in my bag at all times. I generally read nonfiction in the mornings, when my mind is in active learning mode, and fiction at night before bed, when my mind needs an escape. slipping pages into all corners of the day adds up.
happy reading.
See Also: 11 Books Every Boy Should Read | The Daily Wire