How to Trick Your Brain Into Reading More Books
According to the PEW Research Center, the average American reads 4 books a year.
And sadly, 27% of Americans read ZERO books a year.
But reading is noted as one of the key habits of wealthy and successful people.
Which brings us to an important question:
How many books did you read this past year?
Because if you’re looking to become wealthy and successful, you’re going to need to find a way to read more books.
And there’s a simple way to trick your brain into making that happen (and no, this has nothing to do with speed reading).
We’ll show you.
To get started, you’ll want to understand some critical information…
The average person reads at a rate of 200 words per minute.
You may read faster or slower than that, and you can calculate your personal words per minute rate yourself using any book or magazine and any timer or clock.
Just read for one minute straight, and count up how many words you were able to read over that time.
With that being said, the most frequently cited reason American adults say they don’t read is ‘lack of time.’
However, Americans have also said that they’d like to read more books - and that’s good!
But we know Americans are finding time to binge watch tv shows on streaming services, and scroll threw endless updates on social media, because the time spent doing those activities is increasing.
So clearly, the psychological impact of picking up a book and believing we have the time to read it is stopping us from reading more.
here’s how to trick your brain into overcoming this psychological hurdle and getting yourself to read more books…
First, grab a book that you’d like to read.
(We’ll insert a plug here for your local library - which has access to nearly every book you could ever want to read - for free! And oftentimes you can even download them on your phone.)
Next, open the book to the first page that has text (words & sentences) that cover the entire width and length of the page.
(Many books begin with pages where the text doesn’t consume the entire width and length of the page. Skip these.)
Once you’ve found your first text-covered page, count the number of words on the first line of text on the page, and also count the number of lines of text in total on that page.
Got ‘em both?
Now, multiply those two numbers together to arrive at the approximate words per page for that book.
*Please note: this number is an approximation, and the real number of words per page in the book will likely be less, as a number of pages in the book will often not contain text on the full width and length of every page in the book.
Then, with your approximate words per page number in mind, flip to the end of the book to see how many pages there are in total.
(There’s no need to count appendix, citation, or other pages in the back of the book that don’t contribute to the story or material you wish to read.)
As a last step, multiply your approximate words per page number (that you’ve counted) by the number of pages in the book to reach an approximation of the total number of words in the book.
Now you’re almost ready to trick your brain…
Let’s say the total number of words in the book is 60,000 (most novels are, on average, between 60,000 and 90,000 words).
Divide 60,000 (words in the book) by your words per minute reading average to calculate the number of minutes (approximately) it’s going to take you to read the book.
For example:
60,000/200* = 300 (minutes it will take to read 60,000 words at 200 words per minute).
*you can replace this number with your actual words per minute reading average, if you calculated it.
Then, divide 300 (minutes) by 60 (minutes = 1 hour) to understand how many hours it will take you to read this particular book.
300/60 = 5 (hours).
In this example, the book should take you 5 hours to read.
And this number is the key to ‘tricking’ your brain into reading more books.
Now that you have this number, we can get real…
In 2016, the average American read, for personal interest, a pitiful .29 hours a day.
But even though Warren Buffet reads for 8 hours a day, please know that .29 hours is still ok!
Because at .29 hours a day, reading a book that would take 5 hours to read (60,000 words at 200 words per minute) would take about 17 days.
Which would mean, at that rate, you would read twenty-one 60,000 word books a year.
Did you read 21 books last year?
For most people, the answer is no.
But again, for most people, the reason we haven’t read as many books as we’d like is because we think we don’t have the time.
And as we consider the thickness of the books we want to read and the investment in time we imagine it taking to read them (which is often based on nothing but emotion), we stop ourselves from reading the books.
So instead of reading books, we settle for bite sized chunks of online articles, or other short form ‘readables’ that we can digest in the amount of time we envision having for ourselves at that moment.
Or we just give up reading entirely and digest something we understand better how long it will take to consume.
Funny enough, we already do this with television…
Because television and movies come with a predetermined amount of time required to consume them already “printed on the box,” we’re better able to make time in our schedules to watch a show or movie in full. Or even an entire tv series.
As we mentioned earlier, time spent watching television keeps increasing.
But books don’t come with a label that tells you how long it will take to read them.
Because unlike visual media, people consume books at different speeds.
So, if you’ve ever binge watched a tv show on Netflix, you’ve already done what we’re prescribing to do here.
But let’s carve into the 4 hours of television that 80% of Americans watch per day and just imagine if you read a book for 30 minutes a day? (300 minute book/30 minutes a day = 10 days = 3 books a month! 36 books a year!).
Or 1 hour a day? (300 minute book/60 minutes a day = 5 days = 6 books a month!! 73 books a year!!).
Or, let’s get crazy, 2 hours a day? (300 minute book/120 minutes a day = 2.5 days = 12 books a month!!! 146 books a year!!!).
What books could you read this year that could make you smarter, more skilled, better at your work, and more wealthy?
Here’s how to use this trick to supercharge the amount of books you read in a month…
Now that you’ve identified a book you’d like to read and know how long it will take to finish, grab your weekly calendar and schedule (Yes Schedule!) time to read the entire book this week.*
*Assuming it’s a reasonably sized book. If it’s War & Peace or the Bible, you may have to schedule out over multiple weeks.
If your book takes 6 hours to read, then schedule 6 hours to read this week.
Break up your reading time into whatever increments that work best for you and your schedule, but put the entire 6 hours into your schedule for the week.
Now, as a final step, read with a timer…
Set the timer for your interval - whether that’d be 15 minutes, 30, 60, or whatever your personal reading time for that scheduled reading interval is.
Or set an alarm.
Either way, remove all distractions, airplane mode all devices, and lock yourself away if you’re able. But forget about everything else and just read until your timer goes off.
Because the more you can focus in, the quicker you’ll read and the more connected you’ll be to the material. You’ll absorb more and enjoy it more.
And that’s important whether you’re reading to build a skill or reading simply for pleasure.
One Last Trick to help…
Warning: Once you start reading books this way, it may become hard to stop.
Because you’ll be downing books like candy.
But if you really want to put your book reading on hyperdrive, try this…
On a sticky note or paper bookmark that you can affix to what you’re reading, write down the number of hours needed to finish the book (from your calculation).
Then, after each interval of reading, cross out that number and replace it with the new amount of time left to complete the book.
Here’s a visual of what that might look like…
How does this help?
Well, doing this creates a visual countdown.
And countdowns have been scientifically proven to increase the perception that the activity being completed is of a shorter duration than it actually is.
Also, the same science showed that counting down created more favorable attitudes about the activity being completed, compared to counting up.
And counting up is what books do, since almost all books begin with page number one, and count up from there.
So create a countdown, and down more books.
Now that you’re equipped. What are you going to read?
We believe that reading is a direct path to growth.
And that growth is the key to happiness.
And whether they be fiction or non-fiction, books provide a tangible way to learn and grow.
So schedule time to read already.
Because it’ll help you grow.
And you deserve to be happy.
