2021 Goal: Read 52 books
I want to give this challenge a try: Read one non-fiction book every week (on average).
My list (so far):
- Atomic Habits - James Clear
- The 4 Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss
- Eat that frog - Brian Tracy
- The E Myth - Michael E. Gerber
- The $100 Startup - Chris Guillebeau
- The 10x Rule - Grant Cardone
- Something to Smile About - Zig Ziglar
- Better than good - Zig Ziglar
- Cashflow Quadrant - Robert Kiyosaki
- Take the Risk - Ben Carson
- Unshakeable - Tony Robbins
... to be added ...
What else would you recommend reading?
P.S. I'm going to update the list above as I'm finding new interesting books.
Very ambitious but honestly don't see much sense in doing it.
Most, if not all, are actually workbooks/instructions which means you won't improve by just reading them. If it's just for the sake of having a long list of read books then go for it.
I agree. This type of goal isn't for me. It feels too much like putting the cart before the horse. I think it's better to have a specific goal and pick some books that you think might help towards those goals. Otherwise, you'll probably not use a lot of what you read, and will likely forget it.
I'm reading "Make it Stick" right now and one idea it presents for learning is that just reading material is inefficient for learning. It feels productive, but to really learn something, you need to try to use it (via recall or attempting to explain it to others). This mirrors my experience with a lot of books where after I'm done I feel like I've learned something, but a few days later I could not recount what I had read. I can imagine cramming in a book a week would make this even worse.
(By the way, "Make It Stick" has interesting ideas, but I'm finding there's a ton of filler. Too many anecdotes that don't really add anything to the core lessons. I'm ending up just skimming it because it's so boring. A lot of books are like this, so reading more isn't necessarily a good use of your time.)
Exactly. It's pretty much the same with watching tutorials. As long as you don't try to implement those concepts, watching the tutorial is more comparable to watching netflix ;)
What I try now is: I usually mark sentences that are interesting to me. But once the last page of the book has been read I put it aside and actually forget the stuff. So what I try is to make my own summary. In the case of the last 2 read books I sat down and simply typed the marks in a simple word doc and converted it to a kindle-readable format.
So, the next time when I catch myself waiting for something, instead of binge-reading "news" I might open the kindle-app and read (again) the summery I made/wrote. A book of normal size cuts down to ~4-5 pages of word. So, after reading this a couple of times should help to keep it in head.
That's what I want to do too. Write a summary of the books which I'm going to read. 😊
I agree. Maybe 52 is just too much. We'll see how it goes.
Most non-fiction are just repeated messages from different messengers. It may take a few books before realizing that a certain idea is good enough to apply to your life! I read over 50 non-fiction in 2019 & over 80 non-fiction in 2020 & hardly any of the titles were practical outside of the ideas.
Here's a few lists! I did this challenge in 2019 up from 2018 (12 books)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/105303119-jon-douglas?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=2019
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/105303119-jon-douglas?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=2020
https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/105303119-jon-douglas?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=2021
Probably too ambitious, at least for me, unless I don't do much else. I'm in the middle of Great by Choice and I'm loving it so far.
You should checkout Steven Pressfield's books... They're also short, inexpensive, and really good...
Here’s a hack for the 52 books challenge: read all 3 of Austin Kleon’s books. They’re short you can get through one in 30 minutes, and they are good reads. Same with “The Dip” by Seth Godin.
Thank you!
How about Work Won't Love You Back - by Sarah Jeffe
It's on this newsletter - you may want to check it out - it also has a FT business book list of the year.
https://bestbooksandpodcasts.com/newsletter/
Great list. To me there are three ways to look at the yearly book goals. These either fall into one of the following buckets.
A) Those that read to absorb knowledge and apply to growth
B) Read to create a trophy case for book shelf
C) Completely leisure
For those in (A): I don't think you should speed read and rush through books to beat time. You will get a-lot more out of the book if you utilize a summary, then list specifically how you would or wouldn't apply the knowledge to your business, life, or family goals. Read for growth, not for speed.
For those in (B): Very cool, but pretentious
For those in (C): Great to check out and get your brain off other things and into new worlds, scenarios, and thinking patterns.
I don't want to discourage you Florin but 52 books sound a bit too ambitious. I'd cut it in a half and aim for 26 books to avoid frustration ;)
It's still going to be a huge achievement.
PS. I am in the middle of reading Atomic Habits and so far I'd recommend the book.
I won't force myself if I can't make it. It's just a fun challenge to try.
That’s great. Very healthy attitude. Good luck 🙌
I would add these 6 to the list https://medium.com/better-programming/6-must-read-books-for-new-technical-leads-99e9737b8630
Amazing goal.
Two books I can recommend.
Atomic Habits as first, sound perfect for this challenge!
Anyway, I can recommend:
Hey, obviously this is a phenomenal goal. Check out my recommended list at uption.io/booklist - I'd love your IH feedback on the site! Cashflow Quadrant is a personal favorite, I rank it above RDPD.
I do this, actually 104 books a year usually, 2 a week. It's not that hard if you devote reading time every day. I use audiobooks at 4x speed which saves a lot of time. This year though I only got through 78 this year unfortunately.
Hope I don't get killed here for a plug, but really do think you could save a lot of time and energy by "reading" the LIFE Intelligence app. We pack the punch of dozens of books (by covering hundreds of topics on self, career, relationships) in a thoughtful flow. The best part is, you're only reading for ~5-10 minutes a day, and can do immediate reflection within the app. I found last year that reading would go in one ear and out the other, and I would fail to put it into practice. So the goal of LIFE is to make that pocket problem solving handy. https://www.lifeintelligence.io/
App: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1518619206
Amazing goal! I'm right there with you, which is why I'm also launching https://bookletter.umso.co/ for others to follow along with me as I learn.
I would also recommend: Relentless by Tim Grover, interesting book especially if you're into basketball
You've got some really good ones. Here are a few solid reads:
Cheers.
I think this is a fine goal to have. However, I recently watched something on getting wiser by reading fewer books, and it really resonated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ3AsDIMm9s
We tend to equate the "intelligent" person with the "well-read” person. And although in many cases it’s true that great thinkers read a good amount, this view needs some reframing.
If I were you, I’d ask myself a few questions:
Just my two pennies.
I wrote about my experiences of building, marketing and selling an online side-project, which is now an ebook on Gumroad if you want to check it out :)
But otherwise I would recommend The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, because you mentioned you burnt out and this book will help you to deal with life better :)
I went for 52 books this year, and will probably go for it again next year. I ended up at 30 books, and 12,572 pages so far. I'll probably get to 32. But my ratio is probably 35% non-fiction to 65% fiction. And in terms of pages, probably like 15% non-fiction and 85% fiction.
I would encourage you to branch out from the exclusively non-fiction list. It can be useful, entertaining, and also I'd agree with @Wondarar in that you need time for non-fiction books to actually work through and implement the things they're suggesting.
I used to treat non-fiction like a bit of a kick in the pants to get stuff done. But frankly, I wasn't really using the suggestions of the book, and it would have been a better use of my time to either just get back to work rather than reading. And if I was listening to audiobooks, I would have better used that time learning about the world through history and science books over the self-help business books you're looking at here. And when I was unmotivated, I would have better used my time finding books that specifically work on tackling that issue, then using those as a work-book on motivation. Not moving on until I'd internalized the lessons or well and truly convinced myself.
I'd definitely encourage you to go for upping your reading, but I think it's just worth evaluating whether your KPI for gaining actionable, useful lessons is books read. The only reason I can see a benefit to reading 52 non-fiction books in a year is if you're looking to understand the market before writing some non-fiction books. If you were to do this for 2 months, I bet you'd have a pretty good sense of the landscape, and start to see the some habits.
Reading's great, I love it. But I think this kind of goal sets itself up for failure. I think a better idea would be to pick a goal of a thing you want to accomplish, say that in Q1 you'll read a book a week about how you can implement accomplishing that goal, then use the systems and knowledge you learned in Q1 through Q2 and Q3, then reevaluate how well you succeeded in Q4 by reviewing your notes on the books you read.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
Power of Now/anything by Eckhart Tolle
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