Vijay S Paul
And no, its not a clickbait title. I actually do read daily.
It is a habit. While some days I only read blog posts and articles, a lot of the other days I also make time to read at least a few pages of a book.
But either way, I ensure that I do read quite a lot daily.
A few of my friends and a couple of my mentees have asked me about how do I make time for this. Well, there’s a magic formula for that:
Time can neither be created nor be destroyed. It can only be managed efficiently or inefficiently.
[bctt tweet=”Time can neither be created nor be destroyed. It can only be managed efficiently or inefficiently.” username=”TypewriterMedia”]
There you go. That’s my secret.
How I actually tracked this
Over a period of 10 working days, I kept a track of how many articles/blog posts I was reading daily. I kept a separate tab on weekends when I usually read less and write more. Haven’t included that in this ‘calculation’.
I identified the different time bunches in which I was doing most of my reading. And then made a note of them on a Google Sheet.
While some days I was reading in the mid-40s range, some other days I was in the low-30s. But on average I was definitely reading close to 40 articles a day.
Not too bad if I may say so myself.
Also, this has been tracked while I have been working from home, owing to the pandemic. In a normal pandemic-less world, I would still read more or less the same.
The extra time during nature’s call and reading after work, I make up in the ~2.5 hours of daily commute.
Digging into the details
Considering all timings as tentative, here is a detailed list of the different time bunches:
1. After waking up (7:30 am-8:15 am)
This is how I start my day.
After waking up, I still spend quite some time on the bed, reading.
The very first app I open on my phone is Medium. I read some of the top articles and bookmark a few others. When (and if) I have had enough, I move to Twitter where I mostly find 2-3 good reads every morning.
2. Nature’s call (8:15 am-8:45 am)
Oh come on! Don’t give me that look. We are all with our phones during this time. Might as well put it to good use.
I either read the articles I have bookmarked on Medium or find more articles to read on Twitter.
If not, I usually read some news on Google News.
3. In between work (9:00 am-5:00 pm)
The number of articles I read during this time period depends on my workload.
I usually read an article or two, when I take a breather from work. Most of my reads during this time are from my curated Feedly feed.
At times, I also go through my LinkedIn feed to see if I can find something interesting to read.
4. After work (5:00 pm-5:45 pm)
I finish work at about 5 pm.
And before I go for my evening walk/jog, I spend some time reading again. These are usually articles I have bookmarked through the day but didn’t have time to read during my working hours.
5. After exercise (7:00 pm-11:00 pm)
I mostly return from my walk by about 7 pm. In between that, other household chores, and retiring to bed, I do my largest bunch of reading for the day.
Even while cooking, I mostly have my phone with me.
The good side: I still read.
The bad side: At times I tend to lose track of time and overcook whatever’s on the stove.
Collateral damage. But yeah, I am getting better at it.
6. Before sleep (11:00 pm – 12:00 am)
I retire to bed by about 11 pm. But that doesn’t mean I go to sleep directly.
The next one hour or so, I either spend on my Kindle or the rabbit hole down the Medium app.
I used to spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, but the ROK (Return-On-Knowledge) was less. Hence I deleted the app and now mostly stick to the two options mentioned above.
What I learnt from this
I started off this tracking as a means to share my experience of how much I read daily.
But it actually turned out to be more of a journey of discovery for me. It helped me understand how I was using my time, and where I was wasting it (mostly on LinkedIn).
It also helped me realize that I tend to read faster when I am stressed or in a bad mood.
Lastly, my advice
Not so much an advice as it is a suggestion.
If you do not have a reading habit yet, don’t start off with aiming to read 10 articles daily.
Read a few paragraphs a day. Then maybe an article a day. Then two, and so on. But ensure you read daily.
Enjoy the process of building a reading habit. Because unless you enjoy the journey, the destination never makes sense.
Happy reading.
P.S. Though slightly off-topic, I have tagged this article under content strategy because I strongly believe that being well-read is an important skill for a content strategist.
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