Read 15 Minutes a Day – Personal Challenge – Follow Up

This last month we set a goal to read 15 minutes every day for the month of April.  Reading is something that both of us want to do more often but never seem to get around to it on a consistent basis.  The intention was to just force ourselves to do it.  In that respect, setting the goal worked.  We read more than we would have otherwise.  In another respect, we failed, because we did not read every day.

There are various reasons why we didn’t read every day but the main reason is that with both of us working we typically read before we go to bed and sometimes we just fell asleep.  It is easy to get into a bad pattern and miss the next night and the next night.  When you are in a routine things are good but when you get out of it things tend to go back to normal.  This month we went back and forth.

Erin is pregnant and in that phase where she is really tired.  I mean, she is growing a human being inside of her after all.  Combine that with working full time and already being a Mom she gets a pass.  No criticism from me.  For me, I read most nights and missed very few due to falling asleep.  My mistake was in too much screen time in bed before reading and then feeling like it was already too late to read.  When I did read I just fell asleep that much quicker.  I’m pretty sure we’ll do a personal challenge sometime related to screens since we all know what kind of a time suck those can be.

So why is it important to read more?  Well, it is typically a habit of the rich.  Just because they read it does not make them rich but it shows that they are constantly looking to learn.  Tom Corley has spent a lot of time studying the rich and here is a quote by him from a Business Insider article.

• They read every day to learn. 88% of them read every day to increase their knowledge for their job. 85% of them read a minimum of two books a month. 63% of them listen to audio books or podcasts while they’re commuting to work, exercising, or working in their backyards. They don’t read for entertainment. They consider that a waste of time.

Now, we don’t read that much but we’d like to work up to that.  We do listen to podcasts though.  Personally, I find them a great way to learn and stay motivated.  When studying for my Architecture exams I listened to a podcast on the ARE exams and that really helped me rather than just reading study material.  I would highly encourage you to listen to podcasts on topics that you are looking to expand your knowledge on for times you can’t read such as in the car or doing yard work.

So what did we read?

Erin focused on the “$100 Startup” by Chris Guillebeau.  She picked it up at a recent used book sale knowing that she would be quitting her job soon to stay home but has a desire to find ways to make extra income and who knows, maybe even start a business.

I stuck with “Millionaire Teacher” by Andrew Hallam.  I didn’t get as far as I wanted for reasons described above but am enjoying it and would recommend it to anyone looking at learning about investing or early retirement.

We plan to keep reading before we go to bed.  Hopefully, we can improve upon April as we still have that stack of books to read and I recently received Tom Corley’s “Habits of the Rich” for my birthday so that pile is only getting larger.