How I Managed to read 6 Books in last 3 months
Use the power of tiny habits and start reading
Like every other year, I made a promise to myself to read more. You know the typical new year resolution that only lasts a month or two.
To my surprise, this year turned out to be different, thanks to the book I read last year by James Clear called The Atomic Habits.
Yes, the book I read helped me read more books this year.
The book is not about how you can read more, but it's about forming good habits and getting rid of the bad ones. In the book, the author suggests that to make any habit stick, you need to ensure the following
- Make it easy
- Make it hard to avoid or skip
- Reduce it down to its atomic level
How did I make reading easy & hard to avoid?
First, I ordered all the books that I wanted to read this year.
This way I don't have to decide which book to read next.
Also, I kept the book I am reading just beside my couch where I usually keep my remote. So whenever I go and grab the remote, I have two choices either to read or watch TV. Picking up a book instead of a remote is half the battle won.
To make it even harder to forget, I created a recurring to-do item on Things to read every day which reminded me of finishing that task every single day. Reading every day and then marking that item complete, was really satisfying.
How I reduce it down to atomic level?
Instead of making a goal of reading 10 books a year, I made a goal of reading 10 pages a day.
It did two things
- It made the goal or habit more tangible and achievable.
- It reduced the timeline from a year to a day.
Reducing the timeline was a game-changer. I had more control over what
I can do or achieve in a day instead of a year.
Conclusion
Reading only 10 pages a day will allow you to read 300 pages a month which is an average size of a book.
Essentially by having a discipline of reading 10 pages a day which usually takes 10–15 minutes, you will end up reading 12 books a year.
And if you increase that limit from 10 pages to 15 pages (devoting extra 5 minutes) you will end up reading 6 extra books in a year. That’s the power of a tiny habit that has helped me read 6 books in the last 3 months.
Now go and start reading.
Thanks for reading.
