How I went from 0 to 26 books in 2021- My secrets, tricks & experiences
A journey from a noob to a power reader and my recommendations
I was not a power reader 15 months ago. I just started then and now I have read over 26 books in 2021. In this write-up, I will let you understand the know-how of how I went from 0-26.
Uff that’s a lot, isn’t it?
It’s of course not difficult to build a little at a time.
Let’s get right into a bunch of insider secrets of how I got started, built it as a habit, and which app is my personal favorite.
How did I get started with Books?
Upskilling by reading books has become one of the most important elements of my life for the last 15 months, ever since the pandemic started.
I had spent an average of 1-2 hours each day with books.
But I understand.
Reading is not everyone’s cup of tea.
I was not a good reader a year ago.
I was like most of you folks. I just used to buy books and just keep procrastinating about reading them.
It’s not easy. I used to give up after reading a couple of pages. The reason being, not being able to keep up with the concentration and with all the other things happening in my life at that point in time.
Simply we can call it- “Not having enough time to read“.
That’s simple to say, isn’t it?
But let me tell you something.
Reading not only helps you learn new things but also changes you as a person.
I see it in this manner - “You can’t live everyone’s life but what you can do is to learn about their life’s lessons by just going through their writings and experiences they share through their books“.
It’s true, isn’t it?
How I read them
Now coming to how I read books is that I maintain an 80:20 ratio for audiobooks and paperback books.
At least audiobooks work much better for me. It’s a personal choice. It might not be the same case with you.
Just that audiobook provides a handoff experience of relaxing and listening to it.
Also, a lot of people popularise listening to audiobooks during a workout or a walk, doing some other tasks. But this hasn’t worked out for me.
I always want to be 100% present to the audiobook to grasp through what I am listening to. At times it might be very difficult to concentrate on audio as we keep listening to something or another throughout the day.
The time slot
I listen to an audiobook an hour in the afternoon and read paperback an hour in the night.
So a total of 2 hours of book reading and listening per day.
Typically a book takes 5-6 hours on average which is like 5 days of 1 hour of reading or listening.
It’s all about consistency and making it a habit to read/listen at the same time on a regular basis.
There’s no escape from maintaining consistency.
With time when you pick the same time slot to read or listen, you get an internal curiosity of learning and reading when you approach the time you had fixed on a daily basis for. ex. reading for an hour at 3 pm every day.
What did I read
Here the list of 26 books that I had read. I really hope this list helps you with some initial picks to start with.
26. Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc
Which App?
I have personally used multiple apps like Audible, Koo, Storytel, and Scribd.
Scribd came to become my personal favorite for multiple reasons.
Scribd offers the following :
BOOKS
AUDIOBOOKS
MAGAZINES
PODCASTS
DOCUMENTS
The offerings of Scribd are like a one-stop shop for my reading.
If I don’t like reading a book then I can listen. I can go across podcasts or even check research documents etc.
Scribd has become a handy app for me to save and learn from all these modes of learning.
Another benefit is that you pay for Scribd and get all of these in a bundle(ebooks, audiobooks, podcasts, magazines, documents) and it’s unlimited reading and listening unlike Audible where you get only 1 credit a month and have access only to audiobooks.
So this is my I call Scribd “The best app to read books ever: Scribd - My Personal favorite”
Here’s a special two free months to get you started in case you wanna try out Scribd: Try Scribd for free
The showcase 🖼 - my personal favorites
I swear that I use these tools myself on a day to day basis and love using them
(these are affiliate links, in case you end up signing up I get paid a small commission without any extra cost to you) - this is a way you can support me churn more free content like this
I hope you had fun reading through this write-up. If you liked it drop a like and subscribe to unknownVC
I will see in the next one :)