Read Ten Pages a Day and Change Your Life
You probably know by now that reading books is good for you. It's likely been engrained in you since you were a child that reading is a healthy habit and we should all do more of it. But how do you begin that habit if it's not already habitual?
Before we dive in, let me steal an excerpt from another article I wrote:
I am not a fast reader.
Just the opposite actually. I remember learning that Bill Gates reads fifty books a year and thinking to myself, "One book per week? No way I can average that." Apparently reading savant Shane Parrish reads about eighty books a year. New York Times best-selling author Ryan Holiday says he reads hundreds of books every single year.
Hundreds of books a year? I don't even want to read that much.
Let me be clear: I don't read fast and I don't intend on sharing how you can read faster. I do intend on sharing how you can read better. And to read better, you need to read efficiently.
Using simple math we can see how reading only ten pages a day can change your life.
If you read ten pages a day, that's 3,650 pages a year. Most books I read are around 200 pages, so 3,650 divided by 200 brings us to 18.25 books a year.
But what I've found when sticking to ten pages a day is that often times I'll read much more than ten pages. I might read a few more pages to finish a chapter; I might read a little bit more because I have the time to; I might keep reading because the book is just that good. As a result, I average over twenty books per year.
By only reading ten pages a day!
So it's not rocket science - if you can read ten pages a day you can change your life. And who wouldn't want to do that?