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Old 03-17-2007, 05:10 AM   #13 (permalink)
JeffS
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Astoria, NY
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Default Making time to read

Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Avila View Post
Any suggestions on how to get all of that reading accomplished ...50-100 books per year...that is amazing.

Do you schedule a specific time each day to read?
We're getting a bit off topic here, but this seems worth addressing. I've consistently read ~100 books a year for the last several years. I don't speed read (though I do read fairly quickly, thanks to all that practice).

Probably the #1 thing that helps me make time for reading is that I don't own a TV. I don't necessarily replace all that TV time with books, but some of it must work out that way.

By now, all of these habits are completely automatic, but try the following:

- always have a book going. if you get into one, read all you want...when you finish it, start the next one. the longer you go between books, the harder it is to start up again.
- read before bed. this doesn't work for some people, but it's a nice habit to help you relax before sleep. I probably don't do this for more than 15-20m per night anymore, but that time adds up.
- always have a book with you. This is the biggest one if you want to do serious reading. I live in NYC, so I'm on the subway probably 5-10 hours per week, and I always have a book open. If I'm in line at the post office, I read. If I'm waiting for a client to meet me somewhere, I read. If I go to a concert by myself and get there early, I read until the concert starts...then I read during intermission.

All of this may mean that I'm reading 10-20 hours per week, which is a ton...until you realize that much of it would be wasted time otherwise. I'm very busy these days, so I almost never just sit down with a book for a couple of hours, yet I ~never~ take more than 7-10 days to finish even a long book, thanks to all of those snippets of time I find throughout the week.
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