Don’t set too high a goal: how to read two books a week?

Stupids learn from their own lessons, while smart people learn from others’ experiences.

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Editor’s note: Ask yourself, how long have you not studied? The last time I bought the book, how thick is the gray now? Of course, you may not have the subjective desire to read a few more books, but you may not be able to achieve the stated goals because of one or the other objective factors. But in fact, don’t underestimate the strength of accumulation, squeeze out 1 hour a day, squeeze 10 hours a week, a person can read 50 pages per hour, assuming that the average number of pages you read is 250 pages, so that In total, you can read 104 books a year, which is equivalent to an average of two books a week. The author provides a lot of good ways to keep reading in the text, and may be helpful to you who have always wanted to read but have never been able to do so. This article is translated from medium, article author Darius Foroux, the original title How to Read 2 Books a Week.

Do not target too high: How do I read two books a week?

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Most of my friends know that I am interested in the philosophy of the Stoic School. When anyone of my friends wants to start studying this subject, they will ask me the following questions: “Which book should I read first? Is it Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, or Epitectus?”

My answers are the same: buy them all, and then you can see them one by one.

If you feel that you are actually reading less books than you want to read, don’t panic. You are not the only one who has this feeling. I like to read books, but since I graduated from college, I don’t read so many books every year. It turns out that loving books doesn’t always mean that you read books in large numbers: to be realistic, my work and life hinder the amount of my reading. One year, I counted it and found that I read only five books a year. I was shocked at the time and didn’t slow down for a long time.

I later set myself a goal and read 100 books a year. It sounds like a lot, right? Once you break this goal down, it’s actually quite reasonable.Plan: Most people can read 50 pages per hour. If you can guarantee 10 hours of reading a week, you can read 26,000 pages a year. Suppose the average number of pages you read is 250 pages. In this way, you can read a total of 104 books a year.

Next, let me talk about how to implement this goal.

Bulk purchase book

Reading is a costly habit. In order to be fully involved, you need to think of the book as an investment – the more books you have in your home, the greater your return. Buying books in large quantities is a habit I have developed over the years.

The logic is simple: if you have more books in your home, you will have more choices. The more you choose, the more books you can read. The reason is this: most of the books you read are not planned in advance. You won’t make a plan in January to say: “I want to read this book in the first week of June.” Normally, after reading a book, you will look at your book list and decide what to do next. What to read. Not only do you not spend too much time deciding what books to read – because you may end up spending hours reading those book reviews, which is a waste of time.

Listing a list of books allows you to keep this mentality, which means that it’s hard to make excuses to not read. If you buy a lot of books, but you don’t read them, it is a waste of money.

Reading time and time without any time

Here I have to tell those who excuse me to be very busy and have no time to study. As long as the time is squeezed, there will always be, and it will always be possible to squeeze out the reading time.

For me, completing a reading goal means scheduling at least one hour of reading time on weekdays and more reading time on weekends and holidays. Therefore, it is best for you to arrange your time every day and add the task of “reading” to the plan. Don’t make excuses, especially don’t say that you are too busy.

Everyone has a break time that can be used for reading:

You can read on the train
You can read while eating
You can read at the time of waiting
You can also read on the toilet
You can also read at work breaks

In general, any waiting or idle time can be used to read books. When someone else browses Twitter or Instagram for the 113th day, you can use these pages to read a few pages. Even a few minutesThe time is also better than nothing.

Don’t force yourself

I don’t like to say which book is not good, even if I don’t like it at all, because every book is the result of a lot of writing and editing labor.

But it doesn’t mean that everyone praises a book because everyone has different tastes. Maybe a book is a bestseller or a famous book, but you are not interested in it. Or you are really interested in a book, but you are not yet able to read it.

No matter what: Don’t go out of school with a sense of responsibility, or force yourself to read something you don’t want to read. If you don’t have any interest in a book, don’t waste time on it.

Instead, you can read some books that are of interest to you. If you don’t know what you are interested in, try to find books related to your career, hobbies, or interests, or start with a book written by someone you like.

Read many books at the same time

I might open a book in the morning and read 50 pages, then open another book in the afternoon. Sometimes I read five books at the same time.

Some people like to read another book after reading one book, but there is no hard and fast rule on how to read the book. If you can adjust the reading according to your needs and mood in a day or a week. Book, you may find yourself more eager to read. For example, if you are recently reading a history book, you may be willing to relax on Sunday morning and read a basic relaxed novel.

Sometimes, I want to read a book about investment, and I plan to take notes seriously, but that doesn’t mean I want to sit in bed at night and write a picture with a highlighter. If I did this, I would get up very early the next morning because my mind was filled with new things I was learning. On the contrary, in general, I will find a book that will calm my thoughts.

Remember what you have read

Sometimes you may read a book very quickly, and then forget about what you read in a few days. Reading is a time and money investment, but only when you can remember what you have read can you be rewarded.

To remember the knowledge and information you have absorbed from the book, you need a whole set of methodologies. My approach is this:

When reading, use the pen to take notes in the blank space and mark important paragraphs. Especially when you use e-books to read, you just need to mark the paragraphs at hand – it’s easy, but you should never mark everything that you think is a little bit interesting, mark some really valuable. The paragraph is ok.

You can also fold up the parts that you want to remember important. If you are reading it with an e-book, cut the picture and store it in the application.
After reading a book, go back and review the pages you have folded, or browse through the notes.
Write something in your own words, or – if applicable – write down what the author has given in the book.
Copy the sentences and paragraphs that make your name shine.

This is mainly to help you better handle the information for later use. Because you study to learn from the experience of others.

Or Otto von Bismarck said best: