Ask HN: How much time do you spend reading books? I have bought multiple books, but most of the time I don't find myself motivated to read them. Instead, I prefer to watch hour long documentaries/TED talks/programming tutorials on Youtube. I feel that it's important to build the habit of reading books to improve my cognitive skills. Are there any tips for me please? |
My tips? Make a goal of reading a single book for 30 minutes somewhere quiet. If you have a smartphone and/or smartwatch, put them in a different room. Now resolve to read an interesting book for 30 minutes.
If you are looking for engaging recommendations, check out Replay by Ken Grimwood[1]. Try not to read too much about the plot before reading it. If you're a younger person, the book will serve as a warning. If you're an older person, it will hit hard.
I disagree that you 'need to build the habit of reading to improve your cognitive skills'. There is nothing inherently healthy about reading, I know plenty of people who've been reading fiction for their entire lives and they aren't more informed than people not reading books.
The reason you should read books is because if you look hard enough for good books, the content you can find in them is more interesting, more relevant, more engaging than almost any other form of media. I read books all the time because every other form of media is trash, because they teach me esoteric things about the world around me, that you can't get from Ted Talks or other superficial forms of media. But the interest has to be there, if you aren't interested in engaging, intellectual content then just stick to Youtube and be happy.
Not trying to be controversial, but do you also think forums such as this one are trash?
Finding the right forum is exactly how you find good books.
I used to read a lot in high school and then lost the habit as I went through undergrad. The way I got back into it was by ignoring best sellers and hype titles and the feelings of "I should read this because all my hacker friends keep referring to it".
I started reading a lot more fiction, especially stories from my country and culture. I stopped forcing myself to finish books that bored me. And because this is expensive to do, I bought physical books from a used books store instead of 1-click-buys on my Kindle.
Eventually, this built enough reading muscle for me that I moved to reading more ambitious things and I was able to persevere longer and battle through some really boring stuff (on topics that I cared about).
This is the solution. If a book is boring you, skip a few pages, skip a chapter, put it away and get another book, or delete it / throw it away.
But sometimes I will go through a slump, then see a book that really looks interesting and get into it.
Don't feel bad about starting a book and then not finishing it. Life's too short to read books you're not into.
As others have said, the amount of time spent reading depends on the book in your hand. I recently picked up two books by David Baldacci for this week and just finished the second one tonight - His style is stellar, keeps me hooked and I can read for 5 hours solid some nights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innocent_(Baldacci_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Target_(novel)
It varies from year to year, month to month, and even week to week. But for quite some time now I've been really focused on doing a lot of "deep dive" backgrounding on various AI topics. During this period I've read probably 30'ish books (it's been 2+ years now).
For the most part, I carve out time to study very specifically. I'd say a normal week is reading/studying for 3-5 hours on Friday evening after work, then putting in 8 or 9 hours on Saturday, and then probably 3-4 hours on Sunday (during football season) and maybe 6-7 hours on Sunday (non football season). Then maybe another aggregate total of 3-5 hours throughout the rest of the work-week. And then mix in maybe another hour or two a week for reading fiction (that's more sporadic though, so don't take this bit too literally).
Totaling it all up, that's something like 20-30'ish hours as week. Keep in mind, most of this stuff is textbooks which are pretty dense and don't read real fast. I used to read a lot of novels, but I've largely fallen off on the fiction reading lately since I've been so research focused. I think I've read maybe 4 novels this year and am working on the 5th now (Book One of the "Bobiverse" series).
I feel that it's important to build the habit of reading books to improve my cognitive skills. Are there any tips for me please?
Hard to say. I've been an avid reader for basically my entire life, so it comes very naturally to me. The one thing I will observe though, is that over the past 5+ years I've noticed that I find it harder and harder to stay focused on one thing when it comes to video content. I can't watch a movie or tv show without constantly stopping to check Twitter, Facebook, HN, email, news.google.com, etc. But when I sit down with a book, I can just "lock in" and read for hours at a time mostly uninterrupted. My experience may not generalize, but if you try to make yourself read a bit, you may find that reading (paper books) might help you have similar periods of focus? That is, assuming such a thing is important to you.
In either case, read if you enjoy it and derive value from it. But don't read just because you feel like other people are telling you ought to read. "To thine own self be true" and all that jazz...
I’m at 117 books read on the year.
The only tip is that if you actually want to read more you’ll do it. If you don’t do it, you’re only telling yourself you want to read more and you’ll continue to prefer to watch hour long documentaries/TED talks/programming tutorials on Youtube.
Occasionally I read a nonfiction book, or some poetry, but often the "literary" stuff I read is more like the New Yorker or other longreads.
I spent about 30-60 minutes every day.
Mostly pulpy fiction, though. I rarely have mental energy to spare by that time for books that require thought.
But I started working on Gethly platform, and have not been able to find time for books for 3 years now. I am currently finishing a big feature for the platform but after that, I think I might be able to be distraction-free as I do not plan to spend as much time working on it as I did until now, as most things I wanted to implement will be done. So I am looking forward to it.
tl;dr it is about not being distracted and having the time to focus solely on one thing. Also the books must be intriguing. People usually think they do not like reading books when in reality is that they are not sufficiently interested in specific books. If you find some that get you excited, those are easy to read.