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How I Read 100 Books a Year - 8 Tips for Reading More

2019-10-30 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 11:15 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Sponsor segment present

Ali, who reads one or two books a week, gives eight tips for reading more: get a Kindle, drop books you do not enjoy, skip the classics, skim, read in bed every night with the phone across the room, listen to audiobooks, track books on Goodreads and resurface highlights with Readwise.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Eight tips for reading more consistently, alongside a doctor's job, YouTube and a business

  • ★★ Ali averages about one or two books a week alongside his full-time job as a doctor, his part-time career as a YouTuber and a business on the side. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Ali says about eight years of reading a lot have added a great deal of value to his life. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Tip one: get a Kindle

  • ★★★ Ali's first tip for reading more is to get a Kindle, which he calls absolutely game-changing for reading consistently. — 00:00:29 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali cites evidence that people in America who use e-readers read about 40 or 50% more books a year than people who do not. — 00:00:29 · United States
  • ★★ Ali has read everything on a Kindle since about 2008. — 00:00:29 · Kindle
  • ★ Ali says everyone he has pressed to buy a Kindle did so and later told him they were glad, because they now read much more. — 00:00:59 · Kindle
  • ★★★ Ali's second tip is the mindset that it is okay not to finish a book; he used to treat books as sacred objects he had to finish before moving on, even when bored. — 00:00:59

00:01:13 — Tip two: it's okay not to finish a book

  • ★★ For people who feel guilty about a book they cannot finish, such as Sapiens, Ali says the obvious solution is to put it away or delete it from the Kindle library and read something else. — 00:01:43 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali thinks we should treat books much as we treat articles or blog posts online, which we feel no shame in leaving unfinished. — 00:01:43

00:02:11 — Tip three: it's okay not to read classics; start with something like Harry Potter

  • ★★ Ali's third tip is that it is okay not to read classics: he once thought he should read something good rather than reread Harry Potter, but now reads for enjoyment and to make his life better. — 00:02:12 · Harry Potter (book series)
  • ★★★ Ali advises reading beginners to start with something simple, such as Harry Potter or an easy fantasy or fiction book that makes you turn the page, and to explore Charles Dickens or Shakespeare once the habit is formed. — 00:02:42 · Harry Potter (book series)
  • ★★ Ali has recently read the Psy-Changeling series, 16 paranormal romance books he loves and calls absolute trash but fun, without feeling guilty. — 00:02:42
  • ★★ Not caring what he reads as long as he likes it makes Ali read much more consistently, since he carries no baggage of struggling through classics. — 00:03:16

00:03:36 — Tip four: skimming is good; two modes of reading

  • ★★ Ali's fourth tip is that it is okay to skim; from a podcast he takes the idea of two modes of reading, for enjoyment and for information or inspiration. — 00:03:37
  • ★★ Reading fiction for enjoyment, Ali does not bother highlighting or taking notes and is happy to skip long bits of description. — 00:03:37
  • ★★ Reading nonfiction for information, Ali skims, looks for passages to highlight on the Kindle and sometimes starts from the table of contents to see which parts catch his eye. — 00:04:07 · Kindle
  • ★★★ Ali's fifth tip, probably the most important after getting a Kindle, is to build reading into your daily routine. (hedged) — 00:04:36 · Kindle

00:04:48 — Tip five: build reading into your nighttime routine

  • ★★ In bed Ali dims the lights to about 10%, sets his alarm for 6:30 and puts his phone across the room, so he can only sleep or read on his Kindle. — 00:05:18 · Kindle
  • ★★ Reading at least 20 minutes to half an hour every night makes it easy for Ali to finish a book a week. — 00:05:48
  • ★ Bad Blood, Shoe Dog and The Third Door recently kept Ali up late into the night because he enjoyed them so much. — 00:05:48
  • ★★ Ali's sixth tip is that there are many other occasions to read even when you are not reading, such as with audiobooks. — 00:05:48

00:06:09 — Tip six: audiobooks in the car and at the gym, fiction rather than nonfiction

  • ★★ Ali listens to fiction rather than nonfiction as audiobooks: nonfiction is better read on a Kindle to highlight and skim, while fiction flows and its narrators are usually very good. — 00:06:15 · Kindle
  • ★ Ali is listening to the Wheel of Time series as audiobooks, about halfway through the first book, at the gym. — 00:06:15 · The Wheel of Time

00:06:49 — Audible sponsor read

  • ★★ Ali's seventh tip is to have a Goodreads account, the Amazon-owned social network for books with a library of every book published. — 00:07:18 · Amazon
  • ★★ A book read on a Kindle can be added to the currently-reading section on Goodreads automatically, and the rating asked for at the end goes to the Goodreads account. — 00:07:18 · Kindle

00:07:32 — Tip seven: Goodreads as a library of every book read

  • ★★ When he joined Goodreads, four or five years ago, Ali spent a day adding and rating every book he could remember reading; his library now holds over 300 books. (hedged) — 00:08:02
  • ★★ Ali says Goodreads turns reading into a game: he is excited to add a new book to his library and again to finish it, which helps him read more consistently. — 00:08:02
  • ★★ Readwise syncs to your Amazon account and emails you five random highlights from your Kindle books every day. — 00:08:31 · Amazon, Kindle
  • ★★★ Ali's eighth tip is Readwise, which he calls an amazing way to resurface passages he once highlighted; before it he had no way of actively going through his highlights. — 00:08:31

00:08:49 — Tip eight: Readwise resurfaces Kindle highlights and syncs them to Evernote

  • ★★ Ali's daily Readwise email often brings a quote, such as one from Derren Brown's Happy or Tim Ferriss's Tools of Titans, that applies to what he is thinking about. — 00:09:19 · Derren Brown, Tim Ferriss
  • ★★ Ali has recently started syncing his Readwise highlights to Evernote, so when making a video on productivity he searches Evernote for the word and finds every quote on it he has highlighted. — 00:09:49 · Evernote
  • ★ Ali has about 2,000 Kindle highlights across hundreds of books, all synced to Readwise. (hedged) — 00:09:49 · Kindle
  • ★★ Highlights made in Instapaper, which Ali uses to read online articles, also sync through Readwise to Evernote. — 00:09:49 · Evernote
  • ★★ Ali now feels excited to highlight passages, knowing each goes into Readwise and Evernote as wisdom he can call upon, and this helps him read more consistently. — 00:10:18 · Evernote

00:10:35 — Recap: reading is supposed to be fun; sign-off

  • ★★★ Ali sums up that you can read whatever you want, because reading is supposed to be fun, not a chore done for English lessons. — 00:10:47

Threads in this video

  • restate · How do you read more books? — Ali's first tip for reading more is to get a Kindle, which he calls absolutely game-changing for reading consistently. (00:00:29)
  • shift · How do you read more books? — Ali's second tip is the mindset that it is okay not to finish a book; he used to treat books as sacred objects he had to finish before moving on, even when bored. (00:00:59)
  • refine · How do you read more books? — Ali's fifth tip, probably the most important after getting a Kindle, is to build reading into your daily routine. (00:04:36)
  • restate · Should you read on a Kindle, on paper or by audiobook? — Ali listens to fiction rather than nonfiction as audiobooks: nonfiction is better read on a Kindle to highlight and skim, while fiction flows and its narrators are usually very good. (00:06:15)
  • restate · How do you remember what you read? — Ali's eighth tip is Readwise, which he calls an amazing way to resurface passages he once highlighted; before it he had no way of actively going through his highlights. (00:08:31)
  • refine · How do you remember what you read? — Ali has recently started syncing his Readwise highlights to Evernote, so when making a video on productivity he searches Evernote for the word and finds every quote on it he has highlighted. (00:09:49)

Mentioned

Central: Goodreads · Kindle · Readwise

Also: People: Charles Dickens · Derren Brown · Tim Ferriss · William Shakespeare

Works: Bad Blood · Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine · Harry Potter (book series) · Jane Eyre · Psy-Changeling · Sapiens · Shoe Dog · The Third Door (book) · The Wheel of Time · Tools of Titans

Organizations: Amazon

Concepts: second brain

Places: United States

Products: Audible · Evernote · Instapaper

Also centred on Readwise: The 5 Magical Apps That Changed My Life · What's on my iPhone - Favourite iPhone Apps ft. @KharmaMedic · How I Remember Everything I Read

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