How much do we really read?
After graduate school and all those writings and heavy textbooks, I was reading two books a year - if I was fortunate. I'd read on vacation and would often leave them unfinished. Last year I decided to read two to three books per month. This year I'm hoping for one per week. Nowadays, I feel more creatively alive in many areas of my life. I feel more curious and more interested, in everything, I feel better about myself, and my writing output has drastically improved and increased. Increasing my reading rate has been the domino that's tipped over a series of other things. I am very disappointed that I didn't start sooner. Why did I wait so many years? For many years, I have been focusing on simple skimming rather than deep diving, so it took me some time to identify the specific changes that truly improved my reading rate. By the way, none of them had to do with how fast I could read. I'm actually a very very slow reader. I try to do the following. They help me; they might help you too. - Make a real commitment: Just make a public commitment to reading by opening an account at GoodReads or Reco. You can put together an email list to send out short reviews of the books you read to family, friends, and colleagues. I do that at WholeRen; also I have a blog on my reading list. You should do it too. - Find a good trusted, book list: If you look at the broader book industry, they put out more than 70,000 books a year. We really don't' have the time to go through 2,000 new books or so a week. Nobody has that kind of time. I typically ask what my friends are reading. I also have role models and mentors that I follow to see what their reading lists look like. - Concentrate reading at your home: I think having a TV in your main living area is like having cookies in front of you while you are trying hard to keep a healthy diet. Put your cookies (TV) away from your reading area. - Don't just quit: It's one thing to quit reading a book and feels really bad about it. It's another to quit a book and feel proud of it. Change your mindset, and you're there. - Manage your Money when buying books: I've tried to keep a balance between magazine subscription and rotate my subscription to keep them fresh. But short and choppier nature of readings was actually preventing me from going deeper. So now I have no subscriptions. Now I have more money to buy books. - Try to read physical books: In an era when everything is going digital, something is grounding about having a growing collection of books. If you want to get deep, perhaps it's also a nice physical (not digital) representation of the evolution and changes in your mind while you're reading. But also since we all look at screens all day, it can be a welcoming change of pace to hold an actual book in our hands. - Have a book with you all the time: I really mean it, all the time. A few pages here. A few pages there. Have a book with you all the time. I typically try to read nonfiction in the mornings, when my mind is in active learning mode and fiction and novel at night before bed when my mind is tired wants an escape. Last but not least, 好书如挚友 Let's see how many good friends we will find in 201.8. Happy Reading
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AuthorRoozbeh, born in Tehran - Iran (March 1984) Archives
April 2024
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