How to ‘Read’ 1000 Books a Year

2021-10-03 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 9:42 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading · mode: Explanation and tutorial

Ali says he 'reads' around 1,000 books a year but finishes only 70 to 100, and sets out his four-step method: fill the funnel with book summaries and recommendations, make reading effortless with Audible and the Kindle, treat books like blog posts that can be dropped or skimmed, and go deep with notes on the books that really resonate.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Confession: around 1,000 books a year, 70 to 100 finished; the book count as a vanity metric

★★★ Ali says he reads around 1,000 books a year in a loose sense, but finishes only somewhere between 70 and 100 of them. — 00:00:00
★★★ Ali argues that people attach social status and prestige to finishing a book cover to cover, so the number of books read is purely a vanity metric used to impress others. — 00:00:29
★★ Ali proposes a new way of approaching reading: a four-step method he uses to read a thousand books a year, which he says has genuinely changed his life. — 00:00:29

00:00:58 — Step one, fill the funnel: Shortform summaries, Goodreads, Twitter and podcasts

★★★ To read more books, Ali's first step is to fill the funnel: bring loads of books into the top of the funnel to check out, and only later decide which ones to read properly. — 00:00:58
★★★ To decide whether to read a book properly, Ali reads its one-page Shortform summary: if he likes it, the book goes further down the funnel; if not, it is scrapped, its key ideas already taken. — 00:01:27
★ Ali says you can also search a book's title with the word "summary": someone on the internet will have summarised it, which helps decide whether to read the book properly. — 00:01:56
★★ To find book recommendations in the first place, Ali recommends three resources: Goodreads, Twitter and podcasts. — 00:01:56 · Twitter
★★ Ali says Goodreads recommends books based on what you have read, what your friends read and what its community thinks, and turns reading into a kind of game of logging books. — 00:01:56
★ Ali says he is one of the top 10 most followed people in the UK on Goodreads. — 00:02:26
★ Whenever Ali gets a book recommendation he generally buys the book there and then on Amazon, on Kindle or Audible, or else adds it to his to-do list. — 00:02:26 · Amazon, Kindle, Audible

00:02:55 — Step two, make it effortless: Audible, Shortform on the phone, the Kindle by the bed

★★★ Ali's second step is to make reading effortless by fitting it into the daily routine so it is not a chore; his one piece of advice for that is to get into audiobooks. — 00:02:55
★★ Ali says Audible is the one app he would subscribe to if he could only subscribe to one thing, and that Audible is not sponsoring this video. — 00:03:24 · Audible
★★ Ali says that since he started using Audible, in 2017 as he recalls, he has basically doubled the number of books he has been able to read. (hedged) — 00:03:24 · Audible
★ Ali listens to Audible when he is driving, walking around or at the gym. — 00:03:24 · Audible
★★ When he feels really productive, Ali reads Shortform's detailed chapter summaries in its mobile app, which he says is basically reading the book at 10x speed with zero fluff. — 00:03:53
★★ Ali calls the Kindle one of the most life-changing pieces of tech he owns; he has read everything on Kindle since about 2008 or 2009. — 00:04:23 · Kindle
★★ Ali keeps his Kindle on his bedside table, so he always gets about half an hour of reading before bed, with the light on its dimmest setting, and wastes no time before sleeping. — 00:04:23 · Kindle

00:04:52 — Step three, the blog post mindset: stop, skim and skip

★ When he is out, in a waiting room or on a train without his Kindle, Ali reads his books in the Kindle app on his iPhone. — 00:04:52 · Kindle, iPhone
★★★ Ali's third step is the blog post mindset: school teaches that you must power through every book and that quitting one makes you a failure, which he calls terrible; he treats books like blog posts. — 00:04:52
★★★ Ali says there is nothing special about a book because it is in book format: like a blog post, he feels completely okay stopping it halfway or 10% of the way through, as many books hold a lot of nonsense. — 00:05:36
★★★ Ali no longer reads to complete books but to satisfy his genuine intellectual curiosity, and he likes Naval's point that reading is not for signalling but for satisfying our own curiosity. — 00:05:36

“I don't read anymore to complete books. I read to satisfy my genuine intellectual curiosity.”
★★ If a later chapter interests him more, or he has got the bulk of a book's value from its first three chapters, Ali says it is totally okay to stop; he reads for himself and his Goodreads profile, not to impress others. — 00:06:05
★★★ Ali skims: once you have a section's main idea you can blitz through it, slowing down again at a new idea, an interesting thought or other gold dust you do not want to miss. — 00:06:34
★★ Ali says speed-reading techniques such as reducing subvocalization and the finger and ruler techniques make reading faster, but the point is a mindset shift: it is totally okay to skim and to skip paragraphs and chunks. — 00:06:34
★★★ Ali sees reading a book summary, on Shortform, Blinkist or a blog post on Medium, as no different from reading the book, since it gives the main idea; if he enjoys the summary, he gets the book on Audible or Kindle and reads it properly. — 00:07:03 · Audible, Kindle

00:07:33 — Step four, go deep: book notes in Apple Notes and Notion, Shortform exercises, Book Club videos

★★★ Ali's fourth step is to go deep on the books that really resonate; the gold standard he aspires to for such a book is to take notes on what he is reading. — 00:07:33
★★ Ali comes across maybe one or two books a week that really resonate with him and that he wants to read more of. (hedged) — 00:07:33
★★ Mortimer Adler (quoted): Mortimer Adler writes in How to Read a Book that with good books the point is not how many of them you can get through but how many can get through to you. — 00:08:02
★★ Ali calls note-taking a really important skill that differs from person to person, especially for organising ideas, recording the most important lessons and thinking about how to apply what you read. — 00:08:02
★★ Ali's book-note process has evolved over the years; his most low-friction way is a folder called "book notes" in Apple Notes, where he jots down a few bullet points while reading or listening. — 00:08:02
★★ For books that really resonate, Ali writes a proper summary in a Notion template that asks him to summarise the book in a few sentences and give his top three highlights, and Readwise pulls in his other Kindle highlights. — 00:08:31 · Notion, Readwise, Kindle
★★ When he reads only a book's Shortform summary and actually does its exercises, typing out answers, Ali often gets a lot more value from the book, because he works out how to apply its principles to his own life. — 00:09:00
★★ When a book genuinely resonates with him and he thinks it worth sharing, Ali turns it into a video for his Book Club series on the channel. — 00:09:00 · Book Club

In the description and comments

★ Ali calls this approach to reading one of his more controversial hot takes and says its fourth point, going deep, should address a lot of concerns. (hedged) — creator comment
★ Ali says he changed the video's title because the first one was too clickbait. — creator comment

Threads in this video

refine · How do you read more books? — To read more books, Ali's first step is to fill the funnel: bring loads of books into the top of the funnel to check out, and only later decide which ones to read properly. (00:00:58)
restate · How do you read more books? — Ali says there is nothing special about a book because it is in book format: like a blog post, he feels completely okay stopping it halfway or 10% of the way through, as many books hold a lot of nonsense. (00:05:36)
restate · Should you read book summaries instead of whole books? — To decide whether to read a book properly, Ali reads its one-page Shortform summary: if he likes it, the book goes further down the funnel; if not, it is scrapped, its key ideas already taken. (00:01:27)
refine · Should you read book summaries instead of whole books? — When he feels really productive, Ali reads Shortform's detailed chapter summaries in its mobile app, which he says is basically reading the book at 10x speed with zero fluff. (00:03:53)
shift · Should you read book summaries instead of whole books? — Ali sees reading a book summary, on Shortform, Blinkist or a blog post on Medium, as no different from reading the book, since it gives the main idea; if he enjoys the summary, he gets the book on Audible or Kindle and reads it properly. (00:07:03)
refine · Should you read on a Kindle, on paper or by audiobook? — Ali's second step is to make reading effortless by fitting it into the daily routine so it is not a chore; his one piece of advice for that is to get into audiobooks. (00:02:55)
restate · Should you read on a Kindle, on paper or by audiobook? — Ali calls the Kindle one of the most life-changing pieces of tech he owns; he has read everything on Kindle since about 2008 or 2009. (00:04:23)
refine · Should you speed read? — Ali says speed-reading techniques such as reducing subvocalization and the finger and ruler techniques make reading faster, but the point is a mindset shift: it is totally okay to skim and to skip paragraphs and chunks. (00:06:34) → refers to How to SPEED READ
refine · How do you remember what you read? — Ali's book-note process has evolved over the years; his most low-friction way is a folder called "book notes" in Apple Notes, where he jots down a few bullet points while reading or listening. (00:08:02)
restate · How do you remember what you read? — For books that really resonate, Ali writes a proper summary in a Notion template that asks him to summarise the book in a few sentences and give his top three highlights, and Readwise pulls in his other Kindle highlights. (00:08:31)

Mentioned

Central: Audible · blog post mindset · Kindle · Shortform

Also: People: Mortimer Adler · Naval Ravikant

Projects: Book Club

Works: Fifty Shades of Grey · How to Read a Book

Organizations: Amazon · Google · Twitter

Concepts: magical insight logging framework · subvocalization

Products: Apple Notes · Blinkist · Goodreads · iPhone · Medium · Notion · Readwise

Only in the description or credits: Joe Rogan

Also centred on Shortform: My Favourite iPad Productivity Apps

Replies to

refers to · How I Remember Everything I Read
refers to · How to SPEED READ

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