This past year, I doubled the number of books that I read.
In 2023, I read 22 books. In 2024, I polished off 45.
I didn’t have any more hours in my day than I did last year, and, in fact, thing were busier: Work was more intense, I ran a lot more races, and had a fourth kid.
Here’s what I did:
#1 I set a goal… a high goal. At the beginning of 2024, I wrote out a list of “reading goals,” for the year — in terms of the kind of stuff I wanted to read, but also the quantity of books I wanted to get through. I knew that 52 books was a steep goal, but I figured it best to aim high. Ya know — “what gets measured, gets managed.”
#2 Tracked that goal: I used Goodreads’ “Yearly Challenge” feature to hold myself accountable. Plus, it has a nifty “tracking to goal” feature, so I could see how I was doing against my 52-book objective at any given point in time.
#3 Used “micro” amounts of time: I attend prayer service three times/day, a few minutes from my house. Nearly every time I’d leave the house, I’d bring my Kindle with me. Sure, it looks a little funny walking around with your nose in a Kindle, but it’s not much weirder than walking and scrolling Tiktok. I estimate that I was able to read another seven pages/day, just by toting my Kindle with me while I walked places or waited on line at the supermarket. It might not sound like much, but it averages out to another ~200 pages/month — basically a whole other book unto itself, every thirty days.
#4 Spent less time on dumb stuff: Look, I love recipes on Instagram as much as the next person. It’s how I discovered the magic of rye flour chocolate chip cookies! 🍪
But, when I’d check my iPhone’s “Screen Time” feature and see that I spent, say, 82 minutes on Instagram in a given week, I’d ask myself if I actually came away with anything of value at all. Entertainment and relaxation definitely have their place, but spending an hour+ each week on the ‘gram wasn’t — for me — a great use of time. So I conscientiously cut down my time on Instagram, deleted Twitter and Tiktok off my phone, and throttled my usage of Facebook.
#5 Cataloged my goal: I aggressively highlight and take notes on the books I read, so I can go back and see what I thought. And after every book I read, I wrote down a quick review in a personal doc. This cataloging helps keep the book fresh in my heard, and also gives more structure to my goal.
A Rabbi of mine once said, it’s not how you use the hours in your day, it’s how you use the minutes in your hour. He was referring to the study of Torah — an area where I also worked hard to increase my focus — but I think he also meant in general, as well. It’s something I think about quite a lot.
The writer Oliver Burkeman noted, we all get around 4,000 weeks on this earth, and, unless you’re a remarkably young reader of this blog, we’ve all got around another 2,000, give or take. We might as well spend a bit more time zeroed in on the things that really matter to us.
