Seven Easy Habits To Read More Books Next Year

26/12/2019 Gmail - Seven easy habits to read more books next year
Gabriel Alvarez <gaboinkl@gmail.com>
Seven easy habits to read more books next year

Scott Young <newsletter@scotthyoung.com> 24 de diciembre de 2019, 11:35
Para: Gabriel <gaboinkl@gmail.com>
Hello Gabriel,
As a new year approaches, it’s a good time to think about what new habits
you’d like to make. An obvious one is to read more books.
Reading is a habit of compounding growth. Learn more and you’ll generate

ideas and enthusiasm for making other changes.
Reading books, not just random online articles, is especially helpful. An

article can be penned in an afternoon, whereas most books take years.
The result is that, when you read a book, you’re getting more concentrated
thinking on a topic than shorter essays.
Books, however, are also harder to read. They require patience and
attention that is often in short supply. As a result, I think it makes sense to
single out some specific strategies for increasing the amount of books you
read.
Let’s look at a few of these book-boosting habits…
Habit #1: Never feel guilty about putting a book

down and starting a new one.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ik=f510d5ad1d&view=pt&search=all&permmsgid=msg-f%3A1653819659509049580&simpl=msg-f%3A16538196595… 1/8
The habit I’ve had the most success with in increasing the number of books
I read may seem like a paradoxical one. Isn’t the goal to finish more
books? Why would abandoning them without hesitation be a good thing?
But the real cause of reading too few books is that you don’t enjoy it
enough. The worst thing for your enjoyment is to feel compelled to finish a
book that has become boring, predictable or unhelpful.
I often have ten or more books through various states of completion that I
read at a time. I know I won’t finish some of those and that’s okay. The
alternative—reading less—is worse than having a few go unfinished.
Habit #2: Build a library in your Amazon wishlist
Alternatively, if you have a Kindle or eReader, get samples of any book you
might want to read.
The goal here is to have an enormous pile of potentially good books. While
getting stuck with a boring book may be the biggest obstacle to reading
more, the second obstacle is not having enough interesting books waiting
to be read.
I typically source my wishlist from suggestions from other writers and

authors. Tyler Cowen has been a regular referrer of books since his
reading volume dwarfs mine. But, in general, anytime someone
recommends a book on a blog, tweet or in an email, I add it to my wishlist. I
now have hundreds of books to choose from whenever I want to read
something new.
Habit #3: Listen to more books
I love audiobooks. For some books, they’re better than text. Voice conveys
more information than text alone, through tone and pacing. Therefore, for
books where you want not just information but an emotional resonance
with the ideas, audiobooks can be great.
But the real reason to listen to books is that they tend to increase your
overall quantity since listening is possible in situations when reading is not.
I read books on paper, on Kindle and through Audible. More media mean
more opportunities to read.
Ignore the snobs who say listening to a book doesn’t count.
Habit #4: Progressively reduce your temptation to

do something easier
You start reading. But it’s a bit slower and more effortful than Instagram or
YouTube. So, after a few minutes, you decide to just pop over and see
what’s on. An hour passes and your book has started collecting dust in the
corner.
The biggest competitor to books these days is social media. I don’t think
there’s anything intrinsically wrong with these services, but I also think
they’re designed to capture and hold our attention much better than paper
technology. Books, which require sustained attention, struggle to compete.
The solution is to silo off your time for attention-grabbing media so that the
triggers don’t compete. One way I’ve found particularly successful is to limit
your media use to certain times in the day, outside of which, you’ll read if
you have spare time.
While this does require some effort in the beginning, it gets easier as you
no longer have conflicting habits of reading vs checking Facebook at every
moment in the day. Weaned of the habit to check in constantly and it
becomes a lot easier to sit and read (or listen) to a book without fidgeting.
Habit #5: Set aside thirty minutes before sleep for

reading
This habit works because it also helps you get better sleep. Too might light,
particularly the bluer light from LED screens, activates brain circuits that tell
your brain it is still daylight. The result is that it’s harder to start the subtle
biochemical cascade that prepares your body for sleep.
While relaxing you, this habit will also let you accumulate a lot of books
read by the end of the year. If you read 25 pages a night, you can finish
more than thirty books a year with this time alone.
Another option is to turn off all the lights and listen to audiobooks instead.
It’s a good placeholder activity if you have some difficulty falling asleep
since it allows you to keep the lights off and keeps you from anxiously
worrying about not falling asleep (one of the major issues with insomnia).
Habit #6: Delete social media from your phone, add

Kindle instead
Turn your habit of constantly checking your phone into something useful.
Having a Kindle app on your phone means you can always read a book
wherever you are.
The problem most of us have is that we have other apps on our phone
which are more attention-grabbing. If you remove those apps (or limit their
usage to only certain times per day), you can reduce the impulsive need to
check social media.
Habit #7: Create a deeper learning project
I like to read aimlessly. If a subject seems interesting or if the author is a

good writer, I’ll read almost anything. This wandering is great for exposing
you to bulk, positive randomness—giving you a chance to have creative
insights in ways you couldn’t plan for.
But there’s also something satisfying about creating a deeper learning

project. One that spans multiple books to really explore a topic you’d like to
know in-depth. In this case, the goal isn’t just to read a book, but to try to
understand a topic, question or field much better than you do now.
What’s a topic that fascinates you? What would you like to know much
more about? The science of persuasion? The history of espionage? How
your immune system works or how money is made? Pick a topic and make
a cluster of books you can add to your list.
The benefit here is that, as you read more, you can also work toward
bigger goals and topics. What starts as a reading list may even push you to
an ultralearning project, where your goal isn’t just to read, but to turn that
knowledge into an actual skill or accomplishment. Regardless of where
you’re headed, reading more is a great start.
Change Begins with a System

Do you want to read more books this year? The key is to take action to
modify your environment to support these habits now. Download
Leechblock or modify ScreenTime to limit your social media. Talk to your
family about starting a reading habit 30 minutes before bed. Take action
now, and you’ll read far more in the year ahead.
Reading more books isn’t hard. But it does require making some changes
to your habits so it will become automatic. Start today and you can end up
reading thousands of more books over your lifetime.
___
Did you find my article “Seven Easy Habits to Read More Books Next
Year” helpful or know somebody who would? I’d really love if you
could share it:
Best,
-Scott
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26/12/2019 Gmail - Seven easy habits to read more books next year

Gabriel Alvarez <gaboinkl@gmail.com>

Seven easy habits to read more books next year

Reading is a habit of compounding growth. Learn more and you’ll generate

Reading books, not just random online articles, is especially helpful. An

Let’s look at a few of these book-boosting habits…

Habit #1: Never feel guilty about putting a book

Habit #2: Build a library in your Amazon wishlist

I typically source my wishlist from suggestions from other writers and

Habit #3: Listen to more books

Ignore the snobs who say listening to a book doesn’t count.

Habit #4: Progressively reduce your temptation to

Habit #5: Set aside thirty minutes before sleep for

Habit #6: Delete social media from your phone, add

Habit #7: Create a deeper learning project

I like to read aimlessly. If a subject seems interesting or if the author is a

But there’s also something satisfying about creating a deeper learning

Change Begins with a System

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