How To Read 100 Books A Year
Reading books is a tool many are not utilizing. The average person reads 12 books a year. Last year I read 172 books. I could have read 200, but I stopped reading in October to pursue remote earning prospects. It was all because I made a plan that my goal seem achievable. You can easily 10X what the average person reads by taking only a little bit of time out of your day!
If you want to read 100 books in a year (using 100,000 words as the average), it will only take you 1 and a half hours of daily reading. That’s 543 hours in total for the year. It’s only 10 hours a week (all 7 days).
If you spent more time reading on the weekend (let’s say, 6 hours, or double the time you would read on a normal day + 2 days), you can subtract the additional hours and only need to put in about 45 minutes each weekday.
That’s one episode of a show! Reading doesn’t even have to be your primary goal and you can still get a lot done. I should know, because I have a wife, a child, and a full-time job, so I don’t have a lot of free-time to begin with.
I use an app to track my phone usage and I average around 2 and half hours on my phone every day. I know I have the time to read, and I can steal the time I need directly from time I spend on my phone. I already know 99% of the time I’m on my phone it isn’t critically important, so I have no hard feelings about stealing away that time. Also, it’s better in the long run to have the discipline and patience to sit through a book than scroll through social media.
If you want to, you can even download the free Kindle app and start reading classics for free. You can then read on your lunch and breaks at work so you can keep the rest of your schedule open for what is top priority to you (like family, a side-hustle, etc.).
There are no rules other than putting in the time. You can start one book, get bored and, guess what? START ANOTHER. The goal is not to finish 100 books, the goal is to get reading and read a lot more than you used to because you realize you have the time. Maybe you want to finish 100 books, but you end the year with 65 (because you took breaks, you read a couple of 1000+ page books, etc.), well so what? You still read a ton of books.
Reading is an equal opportunity activity. The wealthy and the poor have access to the same books. There are many benefits to reading, and I will cover them in other posts, but I want you to know you have the time to read a lot more than what you’re used to. If you are a younger person you can explode past your peers by spending some time reading, especially if you choose the most difficult books. I promise you you will still have time to do all the other things that make life great, you don’t have to sacrifice a thing to wedge in more books. Good luck!
