23rd July,2023
If you know how to read, then reading books is relatively easy.
You simply have to make time to read. Easier said than done, of course.
Warren Buffett, the man commonly referred to as the greatest investor was addressing students from Columbia University.
One of the students asked Buffett for his thoughts on the best way to prepare for an investing career.
After thinking for a moment, Buffett pulled out a stack of papers and trade reports he had brought with him and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”
Buffett estimates that 80 percent of his working hours are spent reading or thinking.
This was enough to make me ask myself, “Am I reading enough books?”
When I asked myself that question recently, I realized that there were some simple reasons I wasn’t reading as much as I would like to.
I felt I needed to develop a system that will help me read 50 books in a year.
Incidentally, research revealed that is the number of books an average CEO of a Fortune 500 company reads every year. I may not be a CEO but could at least emulate that habit.
When I analyzed my own reading habits, I was reading my 25000 words a day but realized that of late my reading habits were mostly reactive, not proactive.
If an interesting link flashed across my screen on LinkedIn or WhatsApp or Twitter, then I would read it as a reaction.
I wasn’t proactively making time to read books each day. I was simply reading interesting ideas that were pushed in front of me.
As a result, most of my reading was done online. Now, there are plenty of excellent articles on the web, but generally speaking, the quality of good books is better. Books typically have better writing and higher quality information bcoz of better fact-checking and more extensive research. From a learning perspective, it’s probably a better use of my time to read books than to read online content.
So, I had to figure out a strategy that would allow me to read more books without letting typical distractions get in the way.
Then I decided to start with 20 Pages Per Day and ideally get it done at the start of the day and that is a habit I’ve been able to stick with consistently:
I usually wake up, drink a glass of water, write down 3 things I’m grateful for, read my affirmations and read 20 pages of a book.
20 pages is small enough that it’s not intimidating. Most people can finish reading 20 pages within 30 minutes. And if you do it first thing in the morning, then the urgencies of the day don’t get in the way.
20 pages seems small but adds up fast. Now I am working on reading 20 pages during the day & 20 pages pages before going to bed.
I have managed to increase the total pages to around 35 or so but the immediate target is to take it to 50 pages a day & that should help me achieve my target of 50 books per year.
Enjoy your Sunday, Start reading, start small &let it build & stay blessed forever.