The most important habit, like the author of the blog post says, is looking at a book every time you would look at your phone. Its still not great that we arent really bored anymore, but this is already much better than being on twitter.
I don't know why. Maybe it's psychological. Maybe it's just ageing. Maybe it's my brain fried first by internet then by the smartphone.
I still buy more books than I read, probably unconsciously hoping that one day the flame that pushed me to devour so many books will get ablaze again
I finally made it all the way through The Power Broker recently, which I've wanted to read for years, and am now on Jennifer Pahlka's really insightful Recoding America, which features heavily in the chapter "Govern" in Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance. The three are actually quite interesting to read back to back.
Audiobooks are definitely slower to get through than just reading, but I find that I can stick with them in a way that books just haven't allowed me to do in years.
For me I don't like audiobooks because its very slow and spoken stories should have a different cadence, velocity, set of dynamics, and diction than a book should (check out "the moth" to see what I'm talking about). I hold nothing against people who don't like to read or people who like audiobooks, or people who like slow things - Suum cuique.
I have a measure for all content I consume, quality/hr of reading/listening. If it's just a long video that has 2-3 questions that has caught my attention I'd be listening only those. If it's a long text that I might find something interesting I'll ask the LLM to summarize the main ideas as a filter before I decide to dive in.
Books, and their audiobooks version have on average much more bang per hour than random podcasts, because they're structured, authors had spend more time on them and you can cherry pick from a structure.
I also have caught myself using sloppy content as excuse not working on planned tasks with excuses like "this might be useful", or watching "productivity porn" videos. I think LLMs are good as a pre-filter for that.
Scott Adams' podcasts were different. He inserted very few commericials, and they were short enough there was no reason to skip forward. I tried many other podcasts after he passed away, and they all were largely long, boring commercials. Yuck. I now listen to Pandora or Soma FM instead.
Your point is well taken and very reasonable though.
I actually think this is about quality. Podcasts that take real effort (Hardcore History, Fall of Civilizations, Gastropod) are absolutely worth my time, but they're basically mini-audiobooks in their own right.
Back then, whenever I read a book, it felt like I was just moving through the words and lines. Nothing happened in my mind. I had no reaction, no reflection, nothing. Because of that, I avoided learning from books and mostly watched videos instead.
While watching videos, I always read the comments. Reading comments from real people felt different. I reacted to them, reflected on them, and stayed engaged. I think it was because comments are short, simple, and easy to read.
After that, I discovered Reddit, forums, and especially Hacker News. In my opinion, Hacker News is one of the best forums on the internet because it's almost entirely text. Reading those discussions helped me get used to longer and more thoughtful writing.
Over time, my reading improved a lot. I can now read long-form, detailed writing with much better focus and reflection. I still want to improve, but I'm in a much better place than before, when I barely read at all.
Final personal note:
Reading should feel reactive and reflective in your brain. When you read short comments on social media, you can feel the full range of emotions, from happiness to anger to sadness. A good book can create the same experience. It's like highly precise commentary that makes you think, reflect, and react.
> This is probably the most difficult part. I had to remove all social media and streaming apps from my iPhone. I removed Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. When I started, I found myself picking up the phone and immediately noticing that something was missing, since the only things left to do were check the weather, read boring emails, or see my bank account.
These past few months, I have more resolve than ever to cut the chains. Willpower is a practice, and there have been successful steps towards the goal.
First, blocking the real sucks (X, Reddit). Then news (Canadian, won't bore you with the list). And then an innocuous yet sticky set of apps that I would bounce to often, for little benefit or reason: weather, server stats, stocks. A new wrinkle? Inane conversations with LLMs. Blocked!
HN still because, well brothers and the rare sister, it's lonely out there and this place cracks me up. And not much longer.
Now on to entire devices. Desktop, laptop, destined for a locked-down iPad. Lobotomized iPhone, got a watch, and now, slowly, more and more reading.
What pushed me over the edge is the realization that I'm in grief. The Internet which once shaped my identity today, in no defensible way, resembles the silly place which once gave me solace. And yet, like a husk I cling to the teet of these manipulative networks and websites hoping for one last, satisfying drink.
It ain't comin'. Books, then. Like my mother.
New authors however will certainly have to earn trust for a few years now I think.
It's similar with music, if someone puts out their first album in 2026 and has no singles or EPs, no YouTube presence, etc., it's probably slop. If they have a body of work that goes back a few years, easy to trust.
You should always be critical of everything you read. I have stopped reading plenty of books after a few chapters when I realized there was little value in it for me.
Mmh I’m not sure about that. I prefer to read for 1-2 hours rather than read 2 minutes here and 5 minutes there, especially for books that require some concentration to read, like dense stories and/or books not in my native language.
In this way I read more books, which is necessary because ... ah, I almost started discussing why to read more books, that's a different question.
Like if it was something of a sport with olympics where people compete in their own weight and it is measured in the end to the hundredths of seconds in front of spectators in a stadion shaped library who cheer READ, READ, READ! Quality is mentioned, remotely, through selection, but still, the mental picture remains like that. And the post smells like a training guide from a large gym for readers. It's name is 'Serious Readers!'
1. Stop messing about with AI
2. Stop doomscrolling/interacting on social networks (HN is within my 15m allocation)
3. Stop watching _any_ Youtube video that doesn't teach me anything
4. Gloss over my 200 RSS feeds, don't be a completionist
5. Put on classical music, not indie or radio
It almost works. Almost.
I see a few comments about wasting time with AI. I'm curious what the gist of those conversations is about?
I've found AI to be incredibly useful as a tool to nurture intellectual curiosity.
It even improves my book reading experience. Before, when I didn't fully understand a technical detail the author had glossed over, I usually had to skip it, hoping it wasn't critical for understanding later topics. Now, I can get precise explanations for anything I didn't understand in whatever level or detail I require.
I get through about 2 books per month this way. I haven't noticed eye strain issues, but I tend to keep the brightness low and the font size reasonable. If you struggle with eye strain, you might benefit from an e-book phone case (e.g., https://www.inkcase.com/inkcase-for-iphone/) if you don't want to carry a separate device.
One thing that irked me wrong was the part about audiobooks and attention:
> Listening to audio while cooking or cleaning or whatever you do is not the same thing; you are not 100% concentrated on the content. Also, reading is faster than listening, so use your time wisely.
First of all, sometimes you are not concentrating a 100% on something and that is fine. I listen to podcasts while driving, I often miss sentences or longer bits because there’s more traffic that I focus on. That’s fine. I can either go back or accept it.
Second, this is coming from the person that said:
> I read a book when I cook lunch or dinner, and I read a book when eating breakfast.
> I have become good at walking my dog while reading
Edit: formatting
I know of people that read books and consome them like food everyday, and wont learn anything thing from them. Their content becoming a distant memory as time passes. What is the point of reading something if you forget it 2 weeks later?
You may read something but the katharsis is still missing. I recommend when reading something. Take your time with it. You dont need to fetish saying you read 500 books in the last 5 years. I read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" and "Negative Dialectics" and it will take many many more months maybe years to full graps them.
I read them from beginning to end but still have so much to learn from them! Disregarding a good book for another might be a grave mistake.
Simply listening to an audiobook while driving to work let me "read" a lot more than I thought it would. At the time, my commute was only 10 minutes, but I still managed to read a book per month and listen to my favorite podcasts!
Definitely would not recommend higher speed for fiction, though. For fiction, you're listening to a performance. It'd be akin to watching a movie at 2x.
Likely it's a me problem, but I'm mentally so tired that I simply cannot maintain an uninterrupted stream of tasks even if the interstitial spaces are filled with something I enjoy like reading.
One thing I learned is often when you are excited about those easy books, voracious readers are quick to tell you how much the book sucks. "Read this by an obscure author instead". Ignore that until you have read a whole lot of books in your list.
Which is understandable.
I think practical tips for someone already a frequent reader are probably different that for someone who reads 'a bit', a few a year at most. I'd be very happy if I got to 10/year consistently. But that would a) be more than 5.2x-ing; b) be a harder initial curve than the 10 to 52 region, I imagine.
(Proceeds to describe how they made time for reading by removing other distractions.)
I'm trying to read more books, but I easily fall into the trap of staying up late reading good books, and I have trouble recovering from sleep deficit these days.
To me, having these blocks of times sound better than trying to read a sentence or two in the white space around other activities.
Maybe you should take up cycling. Maybe you need to write more. Maybe you aren't eating enough fruit. Maybe you need a little caffeine. Maybe it's the air quality. We don't think it's microplastics.
Your friends who read. Maybe it's their fault. They're not printing enough. Or sending enough screenshots. Why haven't you caught them outside on street medians reading out loud? To whoever. They're not setting for you the right example.
Audio books won't cut it. Hey big guy why don't stick one a them foam feet thingies in between ya toes while ya at it huh! And cut some cucumbers to recess the bags under ya eyes so people wont mistake ya for a guy who actually reads his books and will not following the family to their trip to Monaco this summer, no, sorry Donna, I'll be here at home with the books. The dog will have to learn to fend on its own as will the plants, your niece and nephew.
Read books you enjoy.
One thing that have made it easier for be though has been the decline of everything else. As someone pointed out, the internet isn't the internet we grew up with, TV shows mostly suck now and are all designed for binge watching which leaves me feeling physically ill. Same with e.g. YouTube, there are still creators who's content I enjoy, but the YouTube algorithm seems to force me out of a tangent and preferably into Shorts. Much of this algorithmicly pushed content makes me feel ill, so I try to steer clear of it.
So now I buy used books, most happens to be published in the 1970s for some reason. There are so many out there that I'll never run out of things to read and at €1-2 per books, it's cheap.
I really enjoy it and it's a nice reprieve especially at work.
https://world.hey.com/otar/remembering-what-you-read-8b70cf6...
Not only read book, but also thinking them is a must thing.
Sometime you want to go outside from your home to see the real world.
Don't forget the real world, reading book lets you absorb the knowledge, but most time they are not right， accurate, or you don't understand them, the real world can tell you the real knowledge.