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Professional - Investing 30 minutes to plan at the start of each work day. I follow this system: https://www.workclean.com/ https://www.workclean.com/ I use a

Professional - Investing 30 minutes to plan at the start of each work day. I follow this system: https://www.workclean.com/ https://www.workclean.com/ I use a remarkable e-ink tablet and have a template file I duplicate and complete at the start of each day. I didn’t complete it every day but I think on average I skipped doing it 1 day a month. Part of the success is that I’d feel like a moron if I had this $500 tablet gathering dust. Personal - At the start of each month I set (what I think to be) an achievable goal for activity for the month. This year I focused on 60 minutes of some combination of running/walking/bicycling. I have a chart that I fill in with a blue square on the days I make my goal and a red square on the days I don’t. My biggest setbacks were ~10 days of inactivity due to COVID in April and then about a week I lost due to some hip pain in September. Other than that I missed about 1 day every other month usually due to depression or particularly bad weather. Resetting a new goal monthly helps and creates a fresh start in case I have a bad month. I’ve also read 76 books so far this year. I had set a goal of 52 at the start of the year. Mostly that comes down to finding things I think sound interesting, spending a (relatively) large amount of money on books, and making reading a priority. There’s no magic to any of this. I have pretty modest goals and putting 30 or so minutes towards each of them everyday leads to pretty big gains over time.

nicbou 4y ago
How do you read more than a book per week? I meed longer even with a really good book and a fairly light schedule.
- paulcole 4y ago
  1. I’ve always been a quick reader. I can usually get through a 350-450 page paperback novel in ~3-4 hours. 2. So if I aim to read at least 30 minutes a day on weekdays and then 2-3 hours a day on weekends, they go by pretty quick. 3. I had a week’s vacation back in May and ended up reading 6 books that week. So prioritizing reading when I have extra time helps. 4. If a book sounds interesting, I buy it without thinking about it too much. It shows up on my Kindle and then when it’s time to read I know I won’t waste too much time picking out and buying a new book.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    How do you manage to read so fast? I read about as fast as I speak, and it's often faster than my brain can make sense of some paragraphs.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      I’ve just always been that way since I was a kid. It’s not something I’ve ever practiced besides reading a lot throughout my life. But while I read faster than average, I bet I have average to below average retention. Novels like detective stories or whatever, I just want to follow the plot and enjoy it — I really don’t care if I can remember it at all when I’m done. One benefit of this is that there are some books I’ll revisit every few years and really re-enjoy. Then there’s some books where I’ll be like “this sounds good” and then 1/2-way into it I realize I read it a decade ago. For non-fiction books (particularly those I want to learn from) I make myself go slower and rely on highlights and notes to improve retention.
- soueuls 4y ago
  You make reading your default choice to kill the time. I read when in bed truing to sleep I read if I am waiting for the friend or transportation I read during boring meeting I read 60 books this year, but this included Don Quichotte and Karamazov brothers.

nicbou 4y ago

How do you read more than a book per week? I meed longer even with a really good book and a fairly light schedule.

paulcole 4y ago
1. I’ve always been a quick reader. I can usually get through a 350-450 page paperback novel in ~3-4 hours. 2. So if I aim to read at least 30 minutes a day on weekdays and then 2-3 hours a day on weekends, they go by pretty quick. 3. I had a week’s vacation back in May and ended up reading 6 books that week. So prioritizing reading when I have extra time helps. 4. If a book sounds interesting, I buy it without thinking about it too much. It shows up on my Kindle and then when it’s time to read I know I won’t waste too much time picking out and buying a new book.
- nicbou 4y ago
  How do you manage to read so fast? I read about as fast as I speak, and it's often faster than my brain can make sense of some paragraphs.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    I’ve just always been that way since I was a kid. It’s not something I’ve ever practiced besides reading a lot throughout my life. But while I read faster than average, I bet I have average to below average retention. Novels like detective stories or whatever, I just want to follow the plot and enjoy it — I really don’t care if I can remember it at all when I’m done. One benefit of this is that there are some books I’ll revisit every few years and really re-enjoy. Then there’s some books where I’ll be like “this sounds good” and then 1/2-way into it I realize I read it a decade ago. For non-fiction books (particularly those I want to learn from) I make myself go slower and rely on highlights and notes to improve retention.
soueuls 4y ago
You make reading your default choice to kill the time. I read when in bed truing to sleep I read if I am waiting for the friend or transportation I read during boring meeting I read 60 books this year, but this included Don Quichotte and Karamazov brothers.