A reading habit that holds
Twenty pages a day is about half an hour, and it adds up to roughly two dozen books a year. Attach the reading to a fixed point in the day, such as the train, lunch or the last half hour before sleep, and keep the book where the phone used to be. A public library card is free and, in most systems, includes e-books and audiobooks. Give a book fifty pages. If it has not earned your attention by then, put it down without guilt and start another, since forcing yourself through a book you dislike is how reading habits die.
Read across, and read against
- Read outside your field: a scientist gains from history, and a salesman gains from statistics.
- Read one older book for every new one, since a book still in print after fifty years has been tested by time.
- Read the strongest available argument for a position you oppose, written by someone who holds it.
- Prefer books and long articles to feeds, because an argument developed over three hundred pages teaches you to hold one in your head.
- Go to the primary source when a study or a speech is in the news, and see what it actually says.
Make it stick
Reading without any retrieval fades within weeks. When you finish a book, write half a page from memory covering what it argued, what you doubt and what you will use. Explaining an idea to a friend over dinner is an even better test, because the gaps in your understanding show at once.
Learn something with your hands or your voice
Pick a skill with no bearing on your job, such as a language, an instrument, drawing, woodworking, sailing or cooking a particular cuisine properly. Skills of this kind reward short, frequent practice: twenty focused minutes a day beats a three-hour session on Sunday. Work at the edge of your ability, on the part you cannot yet do, and get a teacher early so that mistakes do not harden into habits. Community college classes often cost less than a gym membership, and many universities post full lecture courses online for free. Being a beginner again at thirty is uncomfortable, and that discomfort is a large part of the benefit.
Tip Join or start a small group that meets monthly to discuss one book or one subject. A date on the calendar and four people expecting you to have done the reading accomplish more than any resolution.
