How I became a more avid reader

 Originally written: 11/30/2018

 Preface:

I want to start this preface to make it clear that I am not the best, fastest, or most avid reader at all. However, I can say that I made significant progress in this area of my life over the past three or four years. This guide provides the reasons and the processes I undertook to try and read more. Because this guide only reflects my experience, it would be wrong for me to think this is universally applicable to all people. However, I again want to show how much I changed along this process. For instance, I recall that I did not read my first book for pleasure until the winter of 2017. On the contrary, in 2018, I read 5 books from front to back so far. Otherwise, between 2012-2016 I only really read for my college classes. My hope is that this guide can help you become better read in topics you want to learn about in time.

1.    Begin with a topic you want to read about.

a.    For me, this was autobiographies. I wanted to learn more about the inner thoughts and philosophies of people in history who I personally thought were worth learning about.

2.    Start with something small.

a.    The first autobiography I read as an adult was “Journeys in Diverse Places” by French Barber-Surgeon Ambroise Pare. The entire autobiography is only about 60 pages long.

b.    The idea here is to not tackle a book that’s too long at the very beginning of trying to read more. It can be very discouraging to start reading a 600-1000-page book as your first project. In sum, start small and build your way up.

3.    Use PDFs to cut books into sections.

a.    Even in the case of “Journeys in Diverse Places,” I downloaded a PDF version of the book. From that point forward, I took this 60-page text and decided that I would only read 10 pages from the text every day. Ultimately, it took me a week to complete the book, but I got it done and I was reading every day.

b.    So, what am I doing here? I am creating mini-goals for myself. I know that I am not satisfied by the feeling of not finishing a project. Therefore, to keep myself feeling like I am constantly getting something done, I will cut a book into equally sized pieces from a PDF. That way, I get a dopamine hit for every piece of the book I get done and I stay motivated to read.

4.    In the event that you don’t have a PDF of the book, and only a physical copy, book chapters are suitable substitutes for equally sized chunks of a PDF.

a.    You still get a dopamine hit for completing a chapter of the book just like you would get it for finishing a 20-page book chunk.

5.    Setting aside time to read is very important.

a.    A good 30 minutes set aside to read is a very powerful thing. It may not seem like much but every little bit of progress helps when you’re trying to read more.

b.    If you have a commute of some sort on public transport, aka, if you’re not driving the bus or train. This is a perfect time to squeeze in time to read.

c.    At the most extreme level of fitting in time to read, you can try to walk and read at the same time. Although, I will say that it does take some work to be good at walking and reading at the same time. You can even read directly after eating your lunch for a bit. I did that in the summer of 2018 to finish a book on comparative health care models.

d.    Does consistency matter? I want to say yes, you should strive to read for at least 10 minutes of day, and ideally 30 minutes a day. However, I understand this can be difficult in life after college. Instead, I think a good alternative is to do longer reading sessions on the weekends. For example, if you are unable to read 30 minutes a day every day, I think a solid hour on both Saturday and Sunday is a very attractive alternative that I have done myself on particularly busy workweeks.

6.    Books don’t have to cost money.

a.    There are a lot of resources on the internet to help you find books for free on the internet. I will list them down below:

b.    Public Domain Books

                                              i.     These are books that are very old. The idea behind public domain is that after an author dies, their work is still copyrighted for an additional 70 years after their death. Once that 70-year period ends the work will enter the public domain and will be available for free. The most popular places to find public domain books are:

·      Project Gutenberg

·      The Internet Archive

·      Haiti Trust

·      Wikisource

c.    Creative Commons Books

                                              i.     These are typically newer books in any discipline that are half-copyrighted in a way. However, the goal of the creative commons license is to allow people to share their work freely and publicly while being able to have a clear attribution and recognition for their work. In practice it makes something like a book free to distribute, but now free to build upon. A list of notable creative common works can be found at:

·      List of notable Creative Commons books