How To Develop a Daily Reading Habit in 15 Minutes a Day
Between being an author, interviewing them for the Unmistakable Creative, and my own personal curiosity and desire for growth, it’s safe to say that books play a really big role in my life.
- Some I purchase myself
- Others are sent to me publishers and publicists
- Many of them have directly impacted my well-being.
As Anne Lamott wrote in her book Bird by Bird, “you wouldn’t be a writer if reading hadn’t enriched your life more than any other activity.”
So how in the world do you actually find the time to read so much? Believe it or not, it can happen in about 15 minutes a day.
Developing a Daily Reading Habit in Just 15 Minutes a Day
If you’re reading this right now, I can promise you that you’re probably already spending 15 minutes a day reading without even knowing it. If you read anywhere between 3–5 articles online, you’re probably spent 15 minutes a day reading.
Given that successful people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg are all voracious readers, many of us would like to read more books. So just imagine what would happen if you took that 15 minutes and directed it towards reading books.
One focused hour might be a bit of a stretch to start. So let’s look at what would happen if you read a book for 15 minutes a day. For the sake of simple math, assume you read 15 pages each day. That’s 450 pages, the equivalent of one big book or two short ones in the span of a month
Scheduling the Time to Read
Don’t put reading on your to-do list. Put it on your calendar because as I’ve said before, calendars are more effective than to do lists.
The first step is to break a book up into manageable parts (10, 15 or 20 pages depending on how fast you read).Once you’ve decided how you’re going to break up a book into more manageable chunks, the next step is to schedule your reading time. Fortunately, the Google calendar app has the goal of a daily reading habit built right into it.
You can choose how long, what the frequency will be, and what time of day you would most want to read. The app will then find a suitable time for you to do your reading.
Reading Extremely Long and Challenging Books
A few days ago I heard Marc Andreessen mention this biography about Walt Disney on an episode of the Tim Ferriss Podcast. Since Marc raved about it, I ordered it right away. When I opened the box, I realized it looked like a brick. It was more than 600 pages and I was wondering how I’d get through such a massive book. That’s what actually prompted the idea for this article.
I knew there was no way I was going to get through this kind of book in one sitting. So I decided rather than trying to read it all as quickly as possible, I would let myself read it slowly. I did some basic math
20 pages X 30 Days = 600 pages
20 pages each day is a lot less intimidating than 600 pages. It’s something you can easily do in one focused hour a day or 15 minutes.
I originally came up with this way of approaching bigger books when I read The 48 laws of Power. If you’ve ever read any of Robert Greene’s books, then you know they’re extremely dense, filled with tons of historical examples and not the kind of books you can read quickly if you want to get the most out of them. I gave myself a simple goal with The 48 Laws of Power. If read about 2 of the 48 laws each day, I would actually be finished with the book in 24 days.
The key to reading longer and more challenging book is to break them up into more manageable bite sized pieces. You can apply this same method to shorter books as well.
With 15 minutes a day you can become a voracious reader. In my own experience, I’ve found that I end up reading for far more than the 15 minutes. Give it a try.
I’m the host and founder of The Unmistakable Creative Podcast. Every Sunday we share the most unmistakable parts of the internet that we have discovered in The Sunday Quiver. Receive our next issue by signing up here.
