Give me 14 minutes and I'll show you how to read more books

2026-04-02 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Sponsor segment present, Lesson from a book, His medical past

Ali gives ten rules for reading more books: keep a Kindle by the bed and the phone outside the bedroom, put Kindle first on the home screen, listen to audiobooks during menial tasks, read several books at once, abandon books freely, read what you love (Naval Ravikant's advice), gamify reading with Goodreads, read and listen faster, impulse-buy recommended books, and take on a reader's identity.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Rule 1: the pillow rule, a Kindle by the bed and the phone charged outside the bedroom

★★ Ali says many people who say they don't have time to read have hours of screen time on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. — 00:00:00 · Instagram, TikTok
★★★ Ali's first rule for reading more, the pillow rule: always keep a Kindle or a book on your bedside table and charge your phone outside the bedroom. — 00:00:00 · Kindle

“what I call rule number one, which is the pillow rule”
★ Ali prefers a Kindle in bed because its light means he needs no reading light. — 00:00:29 · Kindle
★★ Ali says the pillow rule is physical environment design: an environment that nudges you towards the habits you want and away from the rest makes life easier without relying on willpower. — 00:00:29 · friction

00:00:58 — Rule 2: design your digital environment, the Kindle app first on the home screen

★★ Ali says the pillow rule is the single rule that has made the most difference to how many books he reads every year. — 00:00:58
★★★ Ali's second rule: remove social media apps from your home screen; he does not uninstall them, but the first app he sees on his home screen is the Kindle app. — 00:01:27 · Kindle
★ Ali's home screen also holds the habit tracker Momentum, the journaling app Day One, the meditation app Waking Up and the ghostwriter-type app VoicePal. — 00:01:27 · Day One, VoicePal
★★ Kindle and Audible widgets on Ali's phone show his current books: The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman on Kindle and Dark Age by Pierce Brown on Audible. — 00:01:56 · Kindle, Audible
★★ Ali's rule is to design your digital environment to favour reading, making the social media apps that take your attention away from reading harder to reach. — 00:01:56

00:02:26 — Rule 3: the multitasking rule, audiobooks while doing menial things

★★★ Ali's third rule, the multitasking rule: since most people lack hours of uninterrupted time, whenever his hands are busy with something menial he has his AirPods in, usually listening to an audiobook. — 00:02:26 · AirPods
★ Ali adds that there is value in mindfully washing the dishes, being on the toilet or walking in the park without listening to anything. — 00:02:59
★★ As a doctor commuting an hour each way to the hospital, Ali listened to audiobooks at 1.5x to 2.5x and got through many books, mostly Brandon Sanderson's fantasy. — 00:02:59 · Brandon Sanderson
★★ Ali says following the multitasking rule creates at least 30 to 60 minutes of reading a day out of time otherwise spent on music, silence or background YouTube. — 00:03:28

00:03:57 — Shortform sponsor read

★★ When Sapiens came out, Ali felt he should read it because everyone was, found it boring and was stuck on it for about three months, thinking he had to finish it. — 00:04:56
★★★ Ali's fourth rule, advice he got from the internet: don't be a monogamous reader; read several books in parallel and switch between them by energy level. — 00:04:56

00:05:05 — Rule 4: don't be a monogamous reader; the free list of 100 books

★★ Ali usually has two books active on Audible, a fiction and a nonfiction, and on Kindle a fiction, a nonfiction and spiritual literature, which helps him fall asleep. — 00:05:38 · Audible, Kindle

00:06:08 — Rule 5: permission to abandon a book you don't like

★★ Ali says school ingrains an unhelpful habit for adults who want to read more: that reading is work and you are a bad person if you don't finish a book. — 00:06:08
★★★ Ali's fifth rule: give yourself permission to abandon a book you don't like; if a book is not gripping you, it is not your fault, and you can move on without guilt. — 00:06:08
★★★ Naval Ravikant (quoted): Naval Ravikant's advice for reading, which Ali takes as his sixth rule: read what you love until you love to read. — 00:06:44 · Naval Ravikant

“read what you love until you love to read”

00:06:56 — Rule 6: read what you love until you love to read

★★★ Ali says he completely agrees with Naval Ravikant's advice to read what you love until you love to read, and that it has completely changed his life. — 00:07:31 · Naval Ravikant
★★ Ali says he has read over a thousand books but almost none of the classics: he has never finished a Charles Dickens book and found Wuthering Heights boring. (hedged) — 00:07:31
★★★ Ali says starting with the classics is like benching 100 kg on your first gym visit; instead read trashy holiday fiction, romance or murder mysteries until you develop the skill of reading and love the act itself. — 00:07:31
★★ Ali says building the habit of reading, even with trashy books, will improve your life far more than reading only prestige books. — 00:08:00

00:08:29 — Rule 7: gamify the process with Goodreads

★★★ Ali's seventh rule is to gamify reading: his Goodreads account syncs with his Kindle and logs the books he starts and finishes, his yearly stats, ranking and ratings. — 00:08:29 · Kindle
★★ Ali says reading is not about the number of books but how they change, entertain, inspire and educate you, yet a little gamification is still nice, as with tracking his runs and workouts. — 00:09:02

00:09:32 — Rule 8: it is okay to read faster or listen faster

★★★ Ali's eighth rule: it is totally okay to read faster or to listen faster. — 00:09:32
★★ Around 2018, listening to The Wheel of Time, whose slow middle books bored him, Ali discovered he could listen on Audible at 1.5x or 2x; double speed made those books more enjoyable. (hedged) — 00:09:32 · The Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson, Audible
★★ Ali says you can train your listening speed until there is no difference in comprehension at 1x, 1.5x, 2x or even 2.5x, so you get through more books in the same time. — 00:10:09
★★ Ali says subvocalization is a fairly slow way of reading; you can train yourself to eliminate it and read faster, which gets you through the boring bits of books quicker. — 00:10:38
★★★ Answering those who call reading faster toxic productivity, Ali says there is no extra nobility or prestige in reading slowly, just as there is none in reading fast: people read at different paces, as they walk. — 00:11:07

00:11:36 — Rule 9: the impulse buy rule

★★★ Ali's ninth rule, the impulse buy rule he adopted once his side business made money in medical school: whenever you see a book recommended, buy it at once without thinking. — 00:11:36 · Kindle, Audible, Amazon
★★ Ali says impulse-bought books he discovers on his Kindle years later sometimes give him one life-changing idea, so their return on investment is huge. — 00:12:08 · Kindle

00:12:37 — Rule 10: the identity shift

★★★ Ali's final rule is James Clear's identity shift from Atomic Habits: replace "I am not a reader" or even "I'm trying to read more" with telling yourself "I am a reader". — 00:12:37 · Atomic Habits, James Clear
★★ Ali says a reader with a moment of spare time opens Kindle or a physical book instead of scrolling TikTok, and always having something to read drastically increases how many books you read. — 00:13:09 · Kindle, TikTok
★★ Ali says reading more books isn't really the point: the point is the inspiration, motivation, education, learning and entertainment you get from the books you read. — 00:13:09

00:13:38 — Reading more is not the point; his video on remembering what you read

Threads in this video

restate · Is lack of time a real reason not to do something? — Ali says many people who say they don't have time to read have hours of screen time on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. (00:00:00)
restate · How do you stop your phone and social media from eating your time? — Ali's first rule for reading more, the pillow rule: always keep a Kindle or a book on your bedside table and charge your phone outside the bedroom. (00:00:00)
refine · How do you stop your phone and social media from eating your time? — Ali's second rule: remove social media apps from your home screen; he does not uninstall them, but the first app he sees on his home screen is the Kindle app. (00:01:27)
restate · Should you read on a Kindle, on paper or by audiobook? — Ali's third rule, the multitasking rule: since most people lack hours of uninterrupted time, whenever his hands are busy with something menial he has his AirPods in, usually listening to an audiobook. (00:02:26)
restate · How do you read more books? — Ali's fourth rule, advice he got from the internet: don't be a monogamous reader; read several books in parallel and switch between them by energy level. (00:04:56)
refine · How do you sleep better? — Ali usually has two books active on Audible, a fiction and a nonfiction, and on Kindle a fiction, a nonfiction and spiritual literature, which helps him fall asleep. (00:05:38)
refine · When should you quit something? — Ali's fifth rule: give yourself permission to abandon a book you don't like; if a book is not gripping you, it is not your fault, and you can move on without guilt. (00:06:08)
restate · How do you read more books? — Naval Ravikant's advice for reading, which Ali takes as his sixth rule: read what you love until you love to read. (00:06:44)
promised · Ali says he will get into the classics at some point (2026) — Ali says that at some point he will get into the classics and read the big history books and literature classics. (00:07:31)
restate · Is reading fiction worthwhile? — Ali says starting with the classics is like benching 100 kg on your first gym visit; instead read trashy holiday fiction, romance or murder mysteries until you develop the skill of reading and love the act itself. (00:07:31)
refine · How do you read more books? — Ali's seventh rule is to gamify reading: his Goodreads account syncs with his Kindle and logs the books he starts and finishes, his yearly stats, ranking and ratings. (00:08:29)
restate · Should you listen to podcasts and audiobooks at higher speed? — Ali says you can train your listening speed until there is no difference in comprehension at 1x, 1.5x, 2x or even 2.5x, so you get through more books in the same time. (00:10:09)
restate · Should you speed read? — Ali says subvocalization is a fairly slow way of reading; you can train yourself to eliminate it and read faster, which gets you through the boring bits of books quicker. (00:10:38)
refine · Should you speed read? — Answering those who call reading faster toxic productivity, Ali says there is no extra nobility or prestige in reading slowly, just as there is none in reading fast: people read at different paces, as they walk. (00:11:07)
restate · How do you decide whether a purchase is worth it? — Ali's ninth rule, the impulse buy rule he adopted once his side business made money in medical school: whenever you see a book recommended, buy it at once without thinking. (00:11:36)
restate · How do you build a good habit and break a bad one? — Ali's final rule is James Clear's identity shift from Atomic Habits: replace "I am not a reader" or even "I'm trying to read more" with telling yourself "I am a reader". (00:12:37)
progress update · Ali promises to keep recommending fantasy audiobooks on the channel (2020) — Around 2018, listening to The Wheel of Time, whose slow middle books bored him, Ali discovered he could listen on Audible at 1.5x or 2x; double speed made those books more enjoyable. (00:09:32)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Ali promises to keep recommending fantasy audiobooks on the channel (2020) — open (updates through 2026, not reported done); last: progress update, 2026-04-02
Ali says he will get into the classics at some point (2026) — open (no report in 2026); last: promised, 2026-04-02

Mentioned

Central: Kindle · Naval Ravikant

Also: People: Brandon Sanderson · Charles Dickens · James Clear · Josh Kaufman · Pierce Brown · Robert Jordan

Works: Atomic Habits · Dark Age · Fourth Wing · Sapiens · The Personal MBA · The Wheel of Time · Wuthering Heights

Organizations: Amazon · Instagram · TikTok

Concepts: friction · gamification · identity-based habits · spirituality · subvocalization

Products: AirPods · Audible · Day One · Goodreads · Momentum · VoicePal · Waking Up

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