2017 is coming to a close and I have read more than 50 books this year. Ironically, at the end of 2016 I thought about setting a goal to read 52 books in 2017 –a pace of about a book a week– but I chickened out because I didn’t think I could do it (plus most people don’t really keep their New Year’s Resolutions anyway, right?).

 

As the year went on however, I realized that the pace of my reading had picked up considerably. I went from being a long shot to hit 30 books this year, to easily on pace for 40. I realized that if I kept it up, I had a solid chance of surpassing the original goal that I was too scared to commit to.

 

At the time of writing this, I have already read 57 books this year.

 

It’s pretty satisfying to hit a goal that you thought was a lost cause.

 

Your 2018 Reading Goal

 

If you’ve never thought you could read 50+ books in a year before, I promise you that with a little dedication and planning, you can.

 

It will be extremely worthwhile as well. Reading 50 books a year is like having a fire hose of information pointed right at you. It’s pretty exhilarating. I have multiple notebooks full of notes and a good amount of what I have learned has already been implemented into my life.

 

If you need convincing that reading more is something that you should do, consider these facts:

 

• One habit that connects all the ultra-wealthy is that they read lots of books so that they can constantly learn and grow.
• In fact, its not just the ultra-wealthy, virtually all rich people have a love of educating themselves through books.

 

If you’re a writer, or are in any kind of creative field whatsoever, reading is essential because it gives your mind quality ideas to engage with.

 

As they say in programming, garbage in garbage out. If you are consistently feeding yourself low-quality inputs such as breaking news, and tabloid journalism from social media, your output will suffer. High quality input in the form of good books leads to high quality output.

 

Here are some of my favorite quotes that I’ve stumbled upon recently about the importance of educating yourself:

 

• “Formal education makes a living, but self-education makes a fortune.” -Jim Rohn
• Reporter: “What’s your alma mater?” Malcom X: “Books.”
• “If I’ve had any advantage in this life, it was that I was encouraged to read.” -Charlamegne Tha God, Black Privilege
• “Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.” -T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

 

Once you are fully committed to reading more books in 2018, you need an unbeatable system to make sure you succeed.

 

How to Read 50+ Books in a Year:

1) Keep a running list of books you want to read

 

One of the major reasons that I was able to read so many books in 2017 was that I created a list of books that I wanted to read back in 2016.

 

I read one of those listicle posts with some clickbait title like “10 books you NEED to read to be successful.” I thought that all the books recommended were pretty good suggestions, so I created a list in Evernote of books that I wanted to read..

 

As I began listening to podcasts, I started hearing a lot of successful people recommend books. And so I started adding them to the list.

 

As the list grows, you have a variety of books to choose from that you are pretty confident that will be good. The growing size will also instill in you a sense of urgency: if you are actually going to read all these books, you better get to work.

 

If you need help starting your list, I’ve been reviewing the books that I’ve been reading on my blog (although I am woefully behind on posting them. It seems that I read books faster than I write up reviews). You can check out either the main book review page, or skip right to my favorites.

 

 

2) Track Your Progress

 

I don’t know about you, but there are few things that I find more motivating than measurable accomplishment. Reading one book, and seeing ,y total go up by one motivates me to read another.

 

I set up a Google sheet where I started tracking the books that I read. Now whenever I start a book, I enter the information into a table with the following columns:

 

• Book name
• Author
• Category (fiction or non-fiction)
• Genre
• Format (physical, audio, or Kindle)
• Year started
• Year finished

 

I also add a column called “re-read” where I just mark “yes” if I am re-reading the book and leave it blank if I am not.

 

Collecting the data this way means that I can use pivot tables to easily see things such as how many books I start in a year, how many I finish in a year, how many audio books am I reading compared to physical books. etc.

 

While you don’t need to set up pivot tables if you don’t know how or if they seem intimidating, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use them. They are actually pretty simple and they make Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets MUCH more powerful.

 

The main pivot table that I have set up shows me the breakdown of books finished by format by year. So whenever I start a book I plug all the information except “year finished” into my main table, and then when I finish the book I add that last piece of info and the pivot table automatically updates itself. It’s nice to see those numbers go up.

 

3) Have more than one book going at once

 

I once heard Tim Ferriss say that you should only ever be reading one non-fiction book at a time so that you can focus on what is being taught. He makes a good point and because of that I am careful about how many nonfiction books I am reading at once.

 

That said, I think there are huge benefits to reading multiple books at once.

 

First of all, you can mix and match different formats to maximize your ability to read at different times. For instance, you might have a fiction book on your nightstand for bedtime reading, an non-fiction book in your backpack for reading during the day, an audio book on your phone for when you are doing routine tasks (the combination of audio+routine task is one of the few true examples of “multi-tasking”), and one on your Kindle or the Kindle app on your phone for when you have a few spare moments to kill and want to do something more productive than scroll Facebook.

 

This set up actually is pretty close to what I have going on at any one time. Plus, the audio format is different enough from reading a physical book that even if both are non-fiction, it won’t feel like they are conflicting. One seems more like a book and the other like a very long talk. The same is true to a lesser extent with the ebook format.

 

When reading across multiple formats, you’re almost never out of reach of a good book.

 

4) Schedule time for reading

 

You are only able to do what you make time for. If you read when you feel like it instead of setting aside consistent time, you will fall behind and your odds of hitting your goal will evaporate.

 

You can, of course, read whenever you feel like it outside the scheduled time, but make sure you schedule some time and stick to it.

 

For me, I have two scheduled times a day and three scheduled times total:

 

1. The 1st half hour of my lunch break when I eat my lunch (I go on a walk for the second half)
2. The half hour before bedtime
3. Whenever I’m doing a repetitive, manual task such as yard work.

 

The first two are set times that I’ve scheduled and the third is connected to an event (during that one I’m listening to audio books).

 

The book that I read before bed is always a fiction book. This is to intentionally help my mind unwind before sleep.

 

You’ll notice that these reading times are all tied to other activities (lunch, bedtime, and yard work). This is a critical point. If I randomly scheduled a half hour of reading for 10am every Saturday, the habit would be much harder to form and I would probably miss it more often than not. It’s far easier to create a routine by stringing a new habit to and old one than it is to start a new one from scratch.

 

5) Read audio books

 

There is no way around it, I would not have hit my goal if I hadn’t been listening to audio books. So far I have read 20 physical books, 5 Kindle/ebooks, and 32 audio books.

 

As I mentioned before, the combination of audio+routine tasks is one of the few true examples of multi-tasking. Most of the time when people talk about “multi-tasking” they are being unproductive. They are attempting to do two things simultaneously that require the same resources (such as their focus and attention). The result is that it takes them longer to accomplish the two tasks than if they had just finished one before moving on to the other. Audio books are a huge exception to this rule since “brainless” manual tasks don’t compete for your attention.

 

Here are some of the times when I am able to read audio books:

 

• Going on a walk
• Washing the dishes
• Doing yard work
• On my commute
• While doing routine tasks at work

 

That’s a lot of extra reading time that I’ve found for reading in my schedule. It’s time that I couldn’t have taken advantage of if I restricted myself to physical books.

 

The best place to start with audio books is with Audible. This is because when you sign up for a free 30-day trial, you get two free audio books that are yours to keep even if you end up cancelling the trial before you pay anything.

 

The Audible link that I’m including here is an affiliate link, meaning I do get a small commission if you sign up, but it’s a really good deal since if you use it you get two free audio books instead of their normal offer of one.

 

Here’s the link for two free audio books: http://thematthewkent.com/audible

 

When selecting your free books, I recommend picking ones worth re-reading. As Seth Godin says: “The better the book, the more often you need to listen to it.”

 

With that in mind,  I recommend that you make one of you free books Godin’s The Icarus Deception, as it is the book that has most inspired me to do important work.

 

Once you get your two audio books from Audible, you’ll need to find another good place to get them, which leads me to my last point:

 

6) Get books from the Library

 

I LOVE the public library. It’s a great place for me to go to get work done, but they also have BOOKS. So many shelves of books, which you can borrow for free.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s a great thing to buy books. It rewards the author for their contribution and it represents a worthwhile investment in your education. As Ramit Sethi’s book-buying rule goes: “If you’re thinking about buying a book, just buy it.”

 

That being said, if you are endeavoring to read 50+ books next year, it could get pretty expensive if you choose to buy them all. See which books from your list your local library has and check those out.

 

This will dramatically reduce your costs, and while you are there you might discover new, worthwhile books. Earlier this year, my wife went to pick some books up for me and she saw a book called Start! by Jon Acuff which she checked out thinking that I might enjoy it. I had never heard of the book or of Jon Acuff, but it became one of my most recommended books of 2017.

 

The other huge advantage of using the library is that it lets you borrow ebooks and audio books as well. I use an app called Overdrive which lets me sign in with my library card and borrow books from the library. I can borrow ebooks which are sent to my Kindle and audio books which are streamed from the app.

 

With modern technology, you don’t even need to go to the library to borrow books from the library. You can be sitting on your sofa and decide you want to borrow an audio book and be listening to it in minutes.

 

If you want to read lots of books next year, don’t ignore the library.

 

Final Thoughts

 

I can’t recommend highly enough that you commit yourself to reading more books in 2018. As you become well-read on a variety of topics, you will have plenty of interesting things to say in conversation and you will be in a much better position to produce creative output. There’s no such thing as something that is totally “new,” all creativity really is is a clever synthesis of things that came before. The more you learn, the more creative you will be.

 

You can do it. Commit, start, finish. As 2018 comes to a close, drop me a line and let me know how you did.

 

Also, if you happen to be finding this in the middle of the year, don’t wait for the clean slate of a new year, start now!