When I started my residency in 2008 I only read two books in three years. ALTOGETHER!
But as I wrote in my last blogpost: It is critical for our personal development and our career to read non-medical books. But how can I make time for that?
- Photo courtesy of IStockphoto.com
- a couple of sit-ups
- take dance lessons
- yoga
- learning swedish
- cook and eat healthy food and
- finally redeeming the coupon for the tap-dancing lesson I got from my aunt last year.
I just don’t have any time for that.“
1.What gets scheduled gets done:
Even with a tight calendar you manage to eat, sleep, shower and brush your teeth every day. If we decide that something is important, we get it done.
We can create new habits and implement any activity in our day. (For example you could go to bed twenty minutes earlier and read during these twenty minutes.)
2.Don’t read books, listen to books:
I’m not a big fan of multitasking because mainly: well, it sucks. But there are tasks that do not require a lot of brain capacity: you can read during tasks that are mostly processed subconsciously like running, walking or driving. Believe it or not, when I decided to read more I also decided to workout more, which did work out.
Also you should definitely use the time during your commute. Even if you only need 20 minutes to work, you could read roughly 25 books a year! (40 minutes a day x 300 working days a year / 8 hours per book = 25h!) So go to audible.com and get an account. Any smartphone has an app for that nowadays.
3.Throw bad books away, fast.
There is no point in finishing a bad book, or a book that doesn’t interest you much. One main driver for me is that the books I read I am a 100 % into. It is fun to read them and I can’t wait to get back to them.
If I read 20 % of the book and don’t like it, I don’t finish it. That’s my rule.
4.Enhance your reading speed:
The way most of us read is highly inefficient, because we focus on every single word after another and thus do not use our peripheral sight at all.
It is easily possible to double your reading speed in a very short amount of time. I’ve tried it myself and was able to double my reading speed in a couple of days. Here is more on this topic.
5.Read with your spouse (or kids)
You want to spend the sparse free time you have with your spouse? Read a great book out loud to each other. That’s a great way to spend some time together and read at the same time.
This works with kids too: Since the birth of my second child Johanna I’m trying to spend as much time with her as possible. Since there are not many things to do with her right now, but (I think) she enjoys my presence, I read a book to her out loud. The content doesn’t matter since she is not able to understand any of the content. So it might as well be something I’m interested in.
- Question: How do you make time for reading? Please leave a comment below.
