How I Read 100 Books a Year (My 10 Best Tips)

2023-12-15 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:31 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Feel-Good Productivity thesis, Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present

Ali gives ten tips for reading more consistently: read what you love, quit books, always buy the book, read several books at once, listen to audiobooks, shape your physical and phone environment, get a Kindle, gamify with Goodreads, take on a reader's identity, and stop caring about the number of books.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — The value of reading

★★ Ali says that over the last 12 years reading has added more value to his life than anything he has done or anyone he has met. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Tip 1: read what you love

★★★ Ali's first tip for reading more is a quote from Naval Ravikant he calls still underrated: read what you love until you love to read. — 00:00:29 · Naval Ravikant

“read what you love until you love to read”
★★ Ali says that, as the best workout is the one you are excited to do, the best book is the one you are excited to read, rather than difficult books or classics such as Sapiens you feel you must get through. — 00:00:29
★★ Ali says what he really enjoys reading is paranormal romance, fantasy fiction and trashy romance novels recommended on Goodreads. — 00:00:58
★★ When Ali has lost the habit of reading every day, he starts again with something really easy rather than a challenging book, until he loves the process again, and only then tackles the more challenging book. — 00:00:58
★★★ Ali's second tip for reading more is that it is totally okay to quit a book in the middle; he finds it helpful to see a book as a medium of content delivery, like a YouTube video you would stop without a second thought. — 00:01:27

00:01:31 — Tip 2: quit books

★★ As an action point, Ali suggests picking a book you are struggling to read and telling yourself you will abandon it for now: you can always finish it later and start a book you are more excited about. — 00:02:26
★★ In line with Feel-Good Productivity's premise that the secret of productivity is to enjoy the process, Ali says a book you have to struggle through is probably not the right book for you at this time. — 00:02:55 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
★★ Ali says books cost somewhere between $5 and $20, which makes them fairly cheap in the grand scheme of things. — 00:02:55

00:03:02 — Tip 3: always buy the book

★★ Now that he has disposable income, Ali buys any book someone recommends to him without even thinking about it; when he had no money he found other ways to get recommended books, such as the local library. — 00:03:24
★★ Ali says he spent three and a half years and thousands of hours on his book Feel-Good Productivity, with a researcher, several editors and a fact-checker. — 00:03:24 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
★★★ Because almost no other medium gives such bang for the buck as a book, Ali recommends lowering your threshold for buying books: with disposable income, buy any book you hear recommended; without it, find a way to get it. — 00:04:09
★★ Ali says he can trace many of his most life-changing decisions to a single book. — 00:04:09

00:04:23 — Sponsor read for Morning Brew

00:05:33 — Tip 4: read multiple books

★★★ Ali's fourth tip is to read several books at once, because sometimes you are not in the mood for a certain type of book; he often has eight or nine on the go, fiction and nonfiction, for work and not. — 00:05:36
★★ Ali says he reads for around half an hour at least every day. — 00:05:36
★ The books Ali is reading at the moment include Kevin Kelly's Excellent Advice for Living, John and Julie Gottman's Eight Dates, the spirituality book Kundalini Tantra, Crucial Conversations and the fantasy novel Lightlark by Alex Aster. — 00:05:36
★ Ali is also reading the fantasy novel Battle Mage by Peter Flannery and One Blade of Grass, a Zen memoir by Henry Shukman, which he is partway through. — 00:06:05
★★ With several books on the go, Ali picks each evening on his Kindle whatever he feels like reading; with only one book he would feel more friction, skip reading, lose the habit and read much less. — 00:06:05 · Kindle, friction
★ Ali calls Shortform an insanely good book summary service, by far the best he has used, with summaries of the best nonfiction books. — 00:06:35 · Shortform
★★★ Ali's fifth tip is to listen to audiobooks, which he calls life-changing; they are now on Audible, on Spotify with Spotify Premium and on Speechify. — 00:06:35 · Audible, Spotify

00:06:53 — Tip 5: listen to audiobooks

★★★ Ali says audiobooks let you read while on the go, and certain books are often easier to get through by listening than by reading. — 00:07:04
★★ Ali is listening to The Fellowship of the Ring, the first Lord of the Rings book, after trying many times over the years to read it and never getting through its denser descriptions; the narrator makes him likelier to finish. — 00:07:04
★★ Ali tried for ages to read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and only got through it when he listened to it on Audible, finding it really good. — 00:07:33 · Audible
★★ One of Ali's favourite things is walking while listening to an audiobook: as he gets his 10,000 steps every day he is listening to The Lord of the Rings. — 00:07:33
★★ When he worked at the hospital and drove an hour each way to work, Ali listened to Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn and Stormlight Archive series and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. — 00:08:02 · Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive, The Wheel of Time
★★ Ali says he has narrated the audiobook of his own book. — 00:08:02 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)

00:08:30 — Tip 6: shape your environment

★★ In his digital nomad year Ali has everything he owns in a suitcase and a backpack, so he carries few physical books: his own, to show in videos, and How to Change Your Life by Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes. — 00:08:32
★★★ Ali's sixth tip is to shape your environment: for physical books, have easy access to them, such as two or three on your bedside table, so that in bed you reach for a book. — 00:08:32
★★ Ali designs his iPhone home screens to encourage reading: his home screen holds a calendar, his habit tracker, his to-do list app, the Kindle app and the Readwise Reader app. — 00:09:01 · iPhone, Kindle
★★ Ali keeps no social media apps visible on his iPhone home screen, so to open Instagram he has to scroll down and type its name. — 00:09:01 · Instagram, iPhone
★★★ To build any habit, Ali says, give yourself little nudges to do it; to break a bad habit such as social media addiction, make the thing a little harder to access. — 00:09:30 · friction
★★ As an action point, Ali suggests adding a couple of reading apps, such as Kindle, a reader app, Spotify or Audible for audiobooks, to the first screen of your phone. — 00:09:30 · Kindle, Spotify, Audible

00:09:59 — Tip 7: use a Kindle

★★★ Ali's seventh tip is to get a Kindle: he has used one pretty much every day since the original came out in 2008 and calls it one of, if not the single, most impactful tech devices he has bought. — 00:09:59 · Kindle
★★ Ali says Kindles are stupidly cheap, around 50 pounds, or 60 to 70 dollars, on Amazon, and cheaper with adverts on the cover. (hedged) — 00:09:59 · Kindle, Amazon
★★ Ali says reading on a Kindle is not quite as nice as reading on paper, but Kindles are so light that he carries one everywhere. — 00:09:59 · Kindle
★★ In Airbnbs and hotels Ali puts his Kindle on the bedside table and charges his phone across the room, so in bed he is not tempted by his phone. — 00:10:33 · Kindle
★★ Ali attributes the vast majority of the books he has read while busy to having a Kindle, plus the Kindle app on his phone for the toilet, trains, buses and taxis. — 00:10:33 · Kindle
★★ If you do not have a Kindle, Ali says consider buying one or another e-reader, or ask for one as a gift; used consistently, he can pretty much guarantee it will completely change your life. — 00:11:02 · Kindle
★★ Ali's eighth tip is to gamify reading with Goodreads, a somewhat janky Amazon-owned social network for readers that adds books read on Kindle automatically and lets you set reading challenges and rate books. — 00:11:02 · Amazon, Kindle

00:11:10 — Tip 8: gamify with Goodreads

★★ As an alternative to Goodreads, Ali mentions Sofa, an app he found recently for organising your downtime, which also lets you add books. — 00:11:31
★★ Ali says making reading a bit of a game, rating each finished book and adding it to your list, lets you feel your progress and nudges the reading habit along. — 00:11:31

00:11:48 — Tip 9: change your identity

★★★ Ali's ninth tip, from James Clear's Atomic Habits, is to change your identity: it is much easier to read more if you identify as a reader than if you tell yourself you don't read, so shift into "I am someone who reads". — 00:12:00 · James Clear, Atomic Habits

00:12:28 — Tip 10: stop caring about the numbers

★★★ Ali's tenth tip is to genuinely stop caring about how many books you read: the main thing is to read and enjoy the process, the thesis of his productivity philosophy, since productivity takes care of itself when you enjoy the process. — 00:12:29

“Productivity takes care of itself when you can find a way to enjoy the process.”
★★ If you read nonfiction for insight, Ali says it is far better to read a handful of books a year, or even one or half a book, and really absorb the insights and takeaways. — 00:12:59

Threads in this video

refine · How do you read more books? — Ali's fourth tip is to read several books at once, because sometimes you are not in the mood for a certain type of book; he often has eight or nine on the go, fiction and nonfiction, for work and not. (00:05:36)
restate · How do you read more books? — Ali's second tip for reading more is that it is totally okay to quit a book in the middle; he finds it helpful to see a book as a medium of content delivery, like a YouTube video you would stop without a second thought. (00:01:27)
refine · How do you decide whether a purchase is worth it? — Because almost no other medium gives such bang for the buck as a book, Ali recommends lowering your threshold for buying books: with disposable income, buy any book you hear recommended; without it, find a way to get it. (00:04:09)
restate · Should you read on a Kindle, on paper or by audiobook? — Ali's seventh tip is to get a Kindle: he has used one pretty much every day since the original came out in 2008 and calls it one of, if not the single, most impactful tech devices he has bought. (00:09:59)
refine · Should you read on a Kindle, on paper or by audiobook? — Ali says audiobooks let you read while on the go, and certain books are often easier to get through by listening than by reading. (00:07:04)
restate · How do you build a good habit and break a bad one? — To build any habit, Ali says, give yourself little nudges to do it; to break a bad habit such as social media addiction, make the thing a little harder to access. (00:09:30)
refine · How do you build a good habit and break a bad one? — Ali's ninth tip, from James Clear's Atomic Habits, is to change your identity: it is much easier to read more if you identify as a reader than if you tell yourself you don't read, so shift into "I am someone who reads". (00:12:00)
restate · Should productivity be about efficiency or about enjoying the work? — Ali's tenth tip is to genuinely stop caring about how many books you read: the main thing is to read and enjoy the process, the thesis of his productivity philosophy, since productivity takes care of itself when you enjoy the process. (00:12:29)
refine · How do you stop your phone and social media from eating your time? — Ali keeps no social media apps visible on his iPhone home screen, so to open Instagram he has to scroll down and type its name. (00:09:01)
restate · How do you stop your phone and social media from eating your time? — In Airbnbs and hotels Ali puts his Kindle on the bedside table and charges his phone across the room, so in bed he is not tempted by his phone. (00:10:33)
restate · Should you read book summaries instead of whole books? — Ali calls Shortform an insanely good book summary service, by far the best he has used, with summaries of the best nonfiction books. (00:06:35)
progress update · Ali promises to keep recommending fantasy audiobooks on the channel (2020) — When he worked at the hospital and drove an hour each way to work, Ali listened to Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn and Stormlight Archive series and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. (00:08:02)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Ali promises to keep recommending fantasy audiobooks on the channel (2020) — open (updates through 2023, not reported done); last: progress update, 2023-12-15

Mentioned

Central: Kindle

Also: People: Alex Aster · Brandon Sanderson · Damian Hughes · Henry Shukman · Jake Humphrey · James Clear · John Gottman · Julie Gottman · Kevin Kelly · Naval Ravikant · Peter Flannery · Robert Jordan · Yuval Noah Harari

Works: Atomic Habits · Battle Mage · Crucial Conversations · Eight Dates · Excellent Advice for Living · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · How to Change Your Life · Kundalini Tantra · Lightlark · Mistborn · One Blade of Grass · Sapiens · The Lord of the Rings · The Stormlight Archive · The Wheel of Time

Organizations: Amazon · Instagram · Morning Brew

Concepts: 10,000 steps a day · digital nomad · friction · identity-based habits

Products: Audible · Goodreads · iPhone · Readwise Reader · Shortform · Sofa · Speechify · Spotify

Replies to

refers to · How I Remember Everything I Read

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