How We Can All Read More Books in 2021
By: Ben Ravetta
Tags: Books, Life Hacking, Productivity, Time Management, Reading

Plot Twist: I’m not a massive reader, I’ll be honest. But, don’t shoot me just yet. It’s not that I don’t want to read, it’s that somewhere along the line, life just sort of got, well, busy 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’m sure you can relate.

When I was a kid, time was in abundance. I mean literally, the days felt endless. It may well be in abundance now, it just feels like I have less of it to do the things that I feel I really want to do. I know, bad time management. But, me and my partner have just had a little girl, she’s now 5 months old. I’m still trying to figure out how to be the father she needs me to be and also what to do with my life, while simultaneously trying to pursue all of my dreams, build a business, build a life and stay sane with a bank balance that wants me to do the opposite. Margo, my Golden Retriever is constantly swaying my hand to take her on the longest walks. We do live in the English Lakes though, so I mean, can you really blame her? I mean, look at it. JUST. LOOK. AT. IT:

Blea Tarn looking over to Langdale — Copyright Ben Ravetta Creative 2020

And, at the time of writing this, it’s Winter in the UK. That means that the days are about 1 second long. If you blink once, it’s over. By the time I’ve woken up from a groggy 4 hours of scattered sleep, it’s almost sunset. OK, I’m exaggerating slightly, but really - time seems to slip away from me lately. My days feel like I’m on full tilt, doing stuff for other people. Time is never my own. So sitting down and reading a book seems alien. When will I get the time? I have 600 things to do. Before I know it, it’s another day, with another 600 things to do. “Oh, shit yeah. I still need to finish Edward Snowden’s book. I’ll do that tomorrow…”

If you feel like me, and can barely get a minute to yourself. Let me show you my plan for 2021. It’s genius. I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this before.

Amazon.

Photo by Super Straho on Unsplash

Yes, my friends. Amazon is the key, to how we’re all going to read more books in 2021. I hear you, brothers. I hear you. You’re saying, “What the fuck is this guy talking about?”. But wait, before you jet on out of here (and clap this post on your way out 🙃👉🏻) just give me a hot second.

I figured there’s 12 months in a year, right? Jan through to December. Convieniently, I’m writing this post up in December 2020 (Yes, it’s finally over guys 🥳) which gives me a few weeks until the New Year, but you can start this any time. So, as part of my New Year resolutions, I have promised myself to read one book per month. I’m not going to push myself too much, because I know if I promise to read one book a week, it’s just not going to happen. So, one book a month. Seems easy enough. Start off slow. Ease back into it. It gives me 30 days (give or take a day or two) to read one book. If I can’t do that well, fuck me, right?

But I have no books. Of course, I’m lying. I have books. I have a fucking shit ton of self-help books that are just waiting to be read. Audiobooks coming out of my eyes — but those will have to wait. It’s not going to work using those books. No. We need something else. Something new. New books. An incentive each month, to pick up a book and read it. And this, my friends, is where the master plan really takes off.

Preorders.

My January Book — Animal Farm in paperback

I sat down one day and started browsing the books section on Amazon. Specifically, the “Next 90 Days” section. This is great, a section just for books releasing within the next 90 days. Now, the goal isn't to read anything specific. It’s just to read. That’s it. So, I started searching for stuff I thought I’d enjoy. Fiction novels, fantasy novels, real books. You know, the kind you can really get lost in. I’ve always read self-help books. Of course, you can have 100 million self-help books on business and things like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and whatever other stuff you can find out there. But it’s not really a book book, you know? It’s not going to keep me glued. You might be different and that’s fine, the same principle will apply.

Simply find a book that releases in each future month and do this for 12 months. One for January, one for February, one for March, etc. you get the idea. As I said previously, it doesn’t matter what month you begin, so long as you map out 12 books for the 12 months ahead. This will help keep you accountable and at the end of the year, you can be proud that you accomplished a whole year of reading. You don’t pay for them right away, you pay for them when they’re dispatched and if the price changes, you will always pay the lowest price it ever was. So no nasty suprises. It’s simply a case of setting this up for your future (extremely busy) self. When that book lands on your doorstep, right out of the blue. You’ll look inward and thank your past-self. You’ll sit down, you’ll find time to read your new book. You’ll get lost in it. You’ll (hopefully) learn to enjoy reading again. You have a whole month to read it and the beauty of it is, you can do it all again next month. A real “fire and forget” mission. If you find you’re not reading the books, you can cancel the pre-orders you have made, right up until the release date without being charged — no commitment.

But we won’t be doing that now, will we.