One of my goals for 2018 is to read 52 books. That averages out to one book per week.
While I may not actually end up reading one book per week I am on track to hit my goal as of November 17th, 2018. I’ve read 49 books and have a few more to go.
I haven’t always enjoyed reading. In school I actually hated reading. Reading textbooks or historical literature was SOOO BORING. However, I’ve found that there are some topics that I enjoy reading about.
Mainly the books I read are about three topics; Christianity, Business and Money. There are plenty of sub-genres beneath those headings like Marriage, Marketing, Sales, Entrepreneurship, Personal Finance, etc.
My strategy for reading 52 books was to maximize the time that I have for reading. There are three primary ways that I do that.
- Always have a book available. Whether an ebook, audiobook or physical book I wanted to always have one with me. Many of the books that I’ve “read” this year have been audiobooks from Audible.
- Always have a list of books ready. People recommend books sporadically so you have to write those down somewhere. Keep a note on your phone or use an app like Goodreads to keep track of the list. One of the things I did last year was I went to Amazon and searched for books around a specific topic. I then added the top 3-4 books in the category to my reading list. While I haven’t read all of those books it did give me inspiration and killed the excuse that I didn’t know what to read next.
- Don’t read things that are boring. There are three books that I quit reading after 1-2 chapters this year. While they don’t count towards my total I felt fine discarding them because they were boring.
One of the challenges with finishing 52 books in a year is synthesis. I’ve been able to pick up key themes and big ideas from the books. However, since I’m just reading and not studying the books I’m finding that it can be harder to recall the finer details. While that hasn’t been problematic as of yet I do want to find ways to make the things I’m learning “stick.”
