How to Read 20 Books in a Year

I have heard from sev­er­al busi­ness lead­ers and from a few Chris­t­ian pas­tors time and time again that one of the ways a per­son can be suc­cess­ful in his or her field or life is by read­ing good books. One man, a CEO of a suc­cess­ful hos­pi­tal in San Diego, told me to read at least 1 good busi­ness book per month. If you are like me, you love learn­ing new things but find that read­ing a book from cov­er to cov­er can be quite dif­fi­cult to do while run­ning a small busi­ness. There are times you’ll find me hav­ing 3 – 4 good books by my bed­side but will stay there for months! I get through the first few chap­ters, get dis­tract­ed by anoth­er good book and add that to my stack of books ​“I’m cur­rent­ly read­ing.” Before I know it, I’m read­ing 12 books a year like I was told but have only tapped into the first few chap­ters of all 12 books!!!! Why is it that I can­not fin­ish these books? You can call it lazi­ness if you’d like. Maybe I’m too eas­i­ly dis­tract­ed or find some books bor­ing. I would say that my num­ber one rea­son or excuse is sim­ply, ​“I don’t have the time!” Can you relate? So, how can I (and you) over­come such a hur­dle and read good books? Last week, I heard an online ser­mon from author and pas­tor John Piper that told his hear­ers how to read 20 books in a year! The facts

• Lets say the aver­age per­son can read 250 words per minute, which is around 2 nor­mal-size paragraphs.
• The aver­age book is around 200 pages.

The solu­tion

• Impor­tant: Read 15 min­utes per day.
• Don’t read more than 15 min­utes a day or you’ll burn out!
• Read­ing for 15 min­utes a day will result in read­ing a min­i­mum of 3,750 words
• Read­ing for 15 min­utes a day for 365 days will result in hav­ing read at least 1,368,750 words
• If an aver­age book as around 350 words per page, you will have read 3,910 pages or 20 (2oo page) books

So, can you read 20 books a year? Will you take the chal­lenge? If you are a fast read­er, read for no more than 15 min­utes a day, you might be able to read 30 – 40 books a year! You can even accom­plish this task even eas­i­er by lis­ten­ing to audio­books! Give it a try. I am! 

• The aver­age book