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

Arshian

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Transcript

00:00Hey guys, welcome back to the channel.

00:01In this video, I'm gonna be sharing eight tips

00:03that I find helpful for reading more consistently.

00:06So these days, I'm averaging

00:07about one or two books every week,

00:09and this is alongside my full-time job of being a doctor

00:11and my part-time career of being a YouTuber

00:13and running a business on the side, all this stuff.

00:15But the point is that I find the time to read in my routine,

00:18and I think over the last sort of eight years

00:20of reading a lot, that has added so much value to my life.

00:23As usual, timestamps to all of these

00:25are gonna be in the video description

00:26and in a pinned comment,

00:27so you can skip around the video if you feel like it.

00:29But now, let's get started.

00:30So point number one is that you should get a Kindle.

00:33Like, there is some evidence,

00:34I'll link it down below if I can find it,

00:35that says that people in America who use e-readers

00:38read about 40 or 50% more books per year

00:41than people who don't use e-readers,

00:42and the Kindle is amazing.

00:43I've been reading absolutely everything on Kindle

00:45since like 2008, so a very long time.

00:47Yeah, it just completely transforms the reading experience.

00:49That's all I'm gonna say on that front.

00:50I've made about three other videos

00:52where I talk about how amazing it is having a Kindle.

00:54So if you're not convinced so far,

00:56then please have a look at those videos.

00:57I'll link them down below.

00:58But yeah, Kindle is absolutely game-changing

01:00when it comes to reading more consistently,

01:02and everyone that I have hammered this recommendation

01:04down the throat of has bought a Kindle

01:06and has said to me later on that,

01:07oh, I'm really glad I got the Kindle

01:09because now I read so much more,

01:10and it's just completely worth it.

01:12So yeah, 100%, get a Kindle.

01:14Point number two is kind of like a mindset shift,

01:16and I found that when I developed this mindset,

01:18it kind of changed the game for me,

01:19much like getting a Kindle,

01:20and that was the mindset that it's okay not to finish a book.

01:23Previously, I had this view of books

01:25being this sacred, prestigious object

01:27that if I was kind of reading a book,

01:28I would have to finish it before I move on to the next one,

01:30even if I found it boring.

01:31And there are so many people I've spoken to

01:33over the last few months

01:34when we talk about reading and consistency and stuff,

01:36because this is the sort of stuff I talk about,

01:37who say that, oh, you know,

01:38I've been reading Sapiens for the last 18 months,

01:41and I just haven't gotten around to finishing it.

01:43And yeah, every time I sit down to read,

01:44I feel guilty that I haven't finished Sapiens,

01:46so then I try reading it,

01:47and then I get bored after half a page,

01:48and then I close it, and I go to sleep.

01:49The obvious solution there is to just close Sapiens,

01:52put it away, or delete it from your Kindle library,

01:54and just read something else.

01:55In a way, we're sort of treating books

01:57more like blog posts.

01:58If you were reading a blog post or on someone's blog,

02:00you wouldn't feel the sense of shame

02:02if you didn't get to the end of it.

02:03It's kind of like a book.

02:04Like, you know, we should treat books

02:05much like we treat articles or blog posts

02:07on the internet, in my opinion.

02:08And when I internalized that mindset,

02:10I found it a lot easier to read more consistently.

02:13Thirdly, and on a kind of related note,

02:14it's also okay not to read classics.

02:16So this is, again, a thing that I used to have

02:18back in the day, this was ages ago,

02:20where I used to think, oh, you know, if I'm reading,

02:21I should read something good

02:23rather than just reread Harry Potter.

02:24But then I realized that actually, you know,

02:25who defines good?

02:26Who cares if the classics are classics

02:28because English literature students study them?

02:30I don't really care.

02:31I wanna read for enjoyment,

02:32and I wanna read for, you know,

02:33to help my life get better.

02:35And so the advice I often give to people

02:36is that when you're a beginner in reading,

02:38i.e. you don't read very consistently,

02:40you know, the thing to start with

02:41is not something like Charles Dickens,

02:43even though it's a good book,

02:44or like Jane Eyre, or, you know,

02:46like these classics that people say are good,

02:48but that, you know, are from a bygone era.

02:50The trick is to start with something simple,

02:51like Harry Potter, or, you know,

02:53some great fantasy or fiction book

02:55that's easy to read,

02:56that makes you wanna turn the page.

02:57Because once you get into the habit of reading,

02:58then you can start exploring down the,

03:00exploring these avenues of these fancy-ass

03:02English literature sort of books,

03:03like Charles Dickens, and Shakespeare,

03:05and all that stuff.

03:05Recently, I've read the Cy Changeling series,

03:08which is a series of 16 books

03:10on the paranormal romance genre.

03:12And I absolutely love these.

03:13These are absolute trash,

03:14but they're kind of fun, they're cool,

03:16they're different characters,

03:16they've got magical powers,

03:17they fall in love, all that sort of jazz.

03:19I'm not thinking that, you know,

03:20I'm not feeling guilty when I'm reading this,

03:22thinking that I'm reading trash.

03:23And I think because I've got this attitude of,

03:25I don't care what I read,

03:26as long as I like it, as long as it's good,

03:29then that actually makes me read much more consistently,

03:31because it means that there isn't any

03:33of this baggage associated with having

03:35to struggle through reading classics.

03:38Point number four is also semi-related to that,

03:39and that is that it's okay to skim through books.

03:42There was this thing I came across in a podcast,

03:44I'll link it down below,

03:44where the guy was talking about

03:46there being two modes of reading.

03:48Number one, where you're reading for enjoyment,

03:49and number two, where you're reading

03:50for information or inspiration or that sort of stuff.

03:54And reading for enjoyment is more like reading fiction.

03:56So if I'm reading for enjoyment,

03:57then I won't really care about, you know,

03:59highlighting passages or taking notes or whatever.

04:00Because I'm reading for enjoyment,

04:02I'm also okay with skipping long bits of description.

04:05Like, if I get the idea,

04:06and if I'm really wrapped up in the story,

04:07I don't feel the need to read absolutely every word.

04:10And then when I'm reading non-fiction,

04:11I'm not really reading it for enjoyment,

04:12although some of them are quite good,

04:14but I'm more reading it for information

04:15or education or inspiration, stuff like that.

04:17And so my tactics for reading that is a lot different.

04:20A, I'm completely okay to skim stuff as well.

04:22B, I'll be looking for things to highlight on Kindle,

04:24because the Kindle highlighting thing is amazing.

04:26C, I sometimes might even start

04:28by looking at the table of contents

04:29and just kind of scroll through

04:30and see which bits of the book catch my eye.

04:32If there are bits of the book that's boring,

04:34what I tend to do is I'm just gonna flick a few pages,

04:36eyeball some of the words on subsequent pages,

04:38see if it's gonna get more interesting,

04:40and if not, I'll just close the book and read something else.

04:42Like, I'm treating these books

04:43exactly like I'm treating articles or blog posts.

04:46I'm not feeling guilty for skimming

04:48or for not finishing one.

04:50Point number five,

04:51and this is probably the most important thing

04:52after the getting a Kindle bit,

04:53is that I find it really helpful

04:54to build reading into my daily routine.

04:56So my nighttime routine consists of me brushing my teeth,

04:59getting changed, or going naked,

05:01depending on how I'm feeling on a particular day,

05:03getting into bed, telling Alexa to turn the lights to relax,

05:06which is like a nice, like, yellowy sort of.

05:08In fact, Alexa, turn on relax in the living room.

05:12You know, it gives this sort of setup.

05:14Let's go back.

05:15Alexa, turn on ice and fire in the living room.

05:18There we go, back to normal.

05:20So I put on relax, which is like a nice, warm,

05:23I dimmed the lights to about 10%,

05:24and I'd lie in bed, pick up my Kindle,

05:26and I put my phone all the way across the room.

05:28I set the alarm for half past six in the morning,

05:29and I put the phone across the room,

05:30which means the only thing I can do when I'm in bed

05:33is either sleep or read on my Kindle.

05:34Through doing that for the last, like, five, six years,

05:37I'm just gonna read every single night before bed,

05:39and I read until I feel tired,

05:41I feel my eyes beginning to close,

05:42and then I'm like, great, I'm falling asleep.

05:44I'm gonna close the Kindle, put it on the bedside table,

05:46and I will fall asleep.

05:48So that is just the way I've built reading

05:49into my nighttime routine,

05:50and so it's pretty easy for me to finish one book a week,

05:53because I'm reading for at least sort of 20 minutes,

05:56half an hour each day,

05:57and if it's a particularly gripping book,

05:59it'll keep me up until like two, three in the morning,

06:01and I'll be super glad that I did,

06:03and recently I've read lots of books,

06:04Bad Blood, Shoe Dog, and Third Door in particular,

06:07that have kept me up way into the night,

06:09because I've just enjoyed them so much.

06:11Point number six is that there are loads of other occasions

06:13in which you can read even when you're not reading,

06:15and here I'm gonna give a plug to Audible,

06:17because Audible is amazing,

06:18it's like the best audiobook platform ever.

06:20They are actually sponsoring this video,

06:21I just didn't know that when I filmed the video

06:23a few weeks ago,

06:24and I've been using them for the last like two years,

06:26and it's just like one of the best 7.99 a month

06:29that I spend on anything, period,

06:31because when I'm in the car or when I'm at the gym,

06:33I can be listening to audiobooks,

06:35and when it comes to audiobooks,

06:36I tend more to listen to fiction rather than nonfiction.

06:39I think nonfiction, it's better to read on Kindle,

06:41because then you can highlight stuff,

06:42you can skim a lot easier,

06:43whereas fiction, you know, it's just kind of going,

06:45and the narrators are usually very good.

06:46At the moment, I'm listening to the Wheel of Time series

06:49by, I don't even know who it's by,

06:50but it's really good,

06:51and I'm about halfway through the first book,

06:53and I just kind of put that on when I'm at the gym.

06:54If you don't have an Audible subscription,

06:56highly recommend.

06:56Follow the link, audible.com forward slash Ali Abdaal,

06:58and I think it'll give you like a 30-day free trial

07:01and a free audiobook and two free Audible originals,

07:03something like that, you should have a look.

07:05Yes, that is correct,

07:06you can go to audible.com slash Ali Abdaal,

07:08or you can text Ali Abdaal to 500 500,

07:11and with that code, you will get a free 30-day trial,

07:13and you'll get one free audiobook of your choice,

07:15along with two free Audible originals,

07:17so you really might as well give it a shot,

07:19it is genuinely amazing,

07:20as you hopefully saw from my unadulterated opinion

07:23when I didn't know this was a sponsored video,

07:24but yeah, audible.com slash Ali Abdaal,

07:26or text Ali Abdaal to 500 500.

07:29Yeah, sign up to Audible,

07:30it's the best 7.99 a month that I spend, hands down.

07:33Point number seven is that I think it's really helpful

07:35to have an account on Goodreads,

07:36which is also incidentally owned by Amazon,

07:38who are again, not sponsoring this video, unfortunately,

07:40but Goodreads is really good,

07:41because it's like the ultimate social network for books,

07:44kind of, in that they've got a library

07:46of every single book ever published.

07:47For example, if you're reading a book on Kindle,

07:49it automatically can add it

07:50to your currently reading section on Goodreads,

07:53and then when you finish the book,

07:54it'll ask you to give a rating,

07:55and that automatically goes to your Goodreads account,

07:57and so over time, you develop this library

07:59where you track every book you've ever read,

08:01and if you want, you can write a book review,

08:03you can read other people's book reviews,

08:04you can follow recommendations that other people have,

08:06and so when I first got a Goodreads account,

08:08I think it was like four or five years ago now,

08:10I spent a day just racking my brain

08:13and thinking back to every book I'd ever read,

08:15and just adding it to my Goodreads,

08:17sort of, I've read this book library,

08:18and giving it a rating

08:19if I could remember what the book was about,

08:20and now I've got like 300 and something books

08:22in this library, and it kind of becomes a game,

08:25like when I start a new book, I get excited that,

08:27yes, I'm adding it to my Goodreads library,

08:28and if I manage to finish the book,

08:30I feel excited that, yes, that's another book down,

08:31and it's just like a personal game we play with ourselves,

08:33but I found that that is another thing

08:35that's helped me read a lot more consistently,

08:37and if you guys are interested,

08:38I'll link my own Goodreads profile

08:40in the video description,

08:40you can follow my profile,

08:41you can add me as a friend, whatever that means,

08:43and you can see all the books

08:44that I've rated five star, four star, three star, whatever,

08:46and maybe that might help you get some book recommendations

08:48if you're into that sort of thing.

08:50And finally, point number eight

08:52is a service called Readwise that's absolutely incredible.

08:55Readwise is a fantastic service,

08:56because what they do is that they sync to your Amazon account

08:59and if, you know, like me, you read everything on Kindle,

09:02and if you have a lot of highlights,

09:03what it does is that it sends you an email every day

09:05with five random highlights

09:07from random books that you've read,

09:08and so I find this to be an absolutely amazing way

09:10to resurface content that I had read in the past

09:13and I thought was legit enough to be highlighted,

09:15but before discovering Readwise,

09:16I didn't really have a way

09:18of actively going through my highlights,

09:20like occasionally I'd browse the Kindle app

09:22and go through my highlights for a particular book

09:24if I was researching a blog post or an email newsletter,

09:26but now every single day,

09:27I just get an email from Readwise and I read stuff,

09:29and I'm like, oh, that quote from Happy by Darren Brown

09:32or that quote from Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

09:34actually applies to the thing

09:35I'm thinking about at the moment,

09:37so that's a fantastic way of resurfacing the stuff

09:39that you've highlighted

09:40and reminding yourself of these life lessons

09:42that if you're like me and you read everything on Kindle

09:44and you highlight everything on Kindle,

09:46it's immensely valuable.

09:47Another cool thing about Readwise

09:48is that you can sync all your highlights to Evernote,

09:50so I've started doing that recently,

09:51and so if I'm making a video about productivity,

09:54I can just Control-F productivity on Evernote,

09:56and that will include within that search,

09:58it would find me any quotes about productivity

10:00that I've highlighted in various books,

10:02and I think at the moment,

10:03I have like 2,000 highlights

10:04across hundreds of books on Kindle,

10:07and therefore, they're all synced to Readwise,

10:08and another great thing about Readwise

10:09is that if you read articles online via Instapaper,

10:12which is what I use, and you highlight stuff there,

10:14that also syncs to Evernote,

10:15so it's just kind of the ultimate way

10:16of building a second brain

10:18whereby anything that you think is good enough

10:20to be highlighted is then searchable

10:22whenever you wanna find something,

10:24and that is another thing

10:25that's helped me read more consistently

10:26because now I feel excited to highlight stuff,

10:28and whenever I come across a new passage,

10:29I think, yes, this goes straight into my Readwise library,

10:32it's gonna go into Evernote,

10:33and I'll be able to have this as a piece of wisdom

10:36that I can then call upon whenever I need it.

10:38Those were my eight points

10:39on how to read more consistently.

10:41Main thing, get a Kindle

10:42and build it into your nighttime routine,

10:44as you know, that's what I do, that's what I'd recommend,

10:45but also recognise that it's okay not to finish a book,

10:47it's okay to skim, and it's okay to not read the classics.

10:50You can just kind of read whatever you want

10:51because reading is supposed to be fun.

10:53It's not supposed to be this chore,

10:54this thing that we only had to do in our English lessons.

10:56So yeah, thanks for watching.

10:57I hope you found this video useful.

10:58If you did, I'll put a video over there

11:00or over there somewhere,

11:00and that will be a playlist

11:01of some of my recommended readings,

11:04so I've got a video called Three Books That Changed My Life,

11:05and another video about Three Recommended Fantasy Books

11:07that I listened to on Audible,

11:08so you can check those out.

11:09Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.

11:11Bye-bye.

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

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