I read a book every day for 30 days — here’s what I learned
When I thought up the idea for the #30DaysOfChallenge, reading more was one of my top goals. It wasn’t until I started to plan this post that I really thought “how in the world am I going to read a book every single day?” I had to plan how and what I was going to read very intentionally in order to make this work.
01 HOW? AND WHAT?
Reading a book per day isn’t the most practical goal. I knew that in order to hit my goal, I’d need to carefully select the books based on length and availability. Here are the tools and tricks I used to make this possible.
I read only 8 physical books throughout the month. I read these on the weekends when I had more time to sit down and read for a few hours at a time.
The remaining 22 books were audiobooks. I love audiobooks, and it’s the main way I read now, so using them to help me hit my goal was a no-brainer. I was able to listen to longer books on 1.5x speed or even 2x speed depending on the narrator. That meant that a 10-hour book could be read in 5–7 hours.
When deciding what books to read, I tried to find books that would take 4–6 hours to read on average. There were a few outliers in there, but for the most part, I figured I could listen to books for a couple of hours at work every day and for a few hours each night with time to catch up on the weekends.
I DID NOT read more than one book at a time. Reading so many books in such a short period of time meant that I really had to be intentional in focusing on the book (if I only listened to half the story, what was the point). When possible, I kept sticky notes or a journal with me so I could jot down notes about the book to help me stay focused. Reading more than one book would’ve made it even harder to focus.
I tracked all the progress of my reading and pre-planned what books I would read using Goodreads. It’s like a social media platform for books. You can check out my full list and profile HERE.
15 of the books I read were books I have read before. This is partly because I really enjoy re-reading books every few years, especially when it comes to self-development and business books. The other half were books I’ve never read. I wanted to make sure to have a good mix.
I used two apps for my audiobooks; Libby, a free app that allows you to connect to local libraries and “borrow” audiobooks for free, and Audible, Amazon’s app for audiobooks.
02 SO, HOW DID THE CHALLENGE GO?
I decided to start on a Monday morning, I started off with some Audible books that I’ve read before but wanted to reread. “Pumpkin Plan” took me 3 days to read. Oops. But when I finished it on Wednesday morning, I immediately started “Start with Why” and finished the book before I left work. I was one book behind at this point, so as soon as I got home from work, I went to my bookshelf and pulled out a pile of physical books to read. My goal was to read for at least an hour every night before bed.
We put my daughter to bed around 7–7:30 pm so that gives me until 9 pm to read and get ready for bed. I’m a pretty fast reader, so a couple of hours every night plus audiobooks during the day (on 1.5x speed), made me feel confident that I could do this. I decided to make a list of the books I was going to read using Goodreads. I put holds on some books in my Libby App and borrowed 5 books to read over the rest of the week.
By the end of Wednesday, I had finished 3 books, I was back on track and ready to take on the next 27 days. I chose a longer book to keep in my bag and I charged my headphones, I was feeling pretty freaking confident. I did well… for 7 more days. Day 11 was a Saturday, a very busy Saturday. Sunday was also busy. Monday I had no way to read at work because we had meetings all day, so by Tuesday (day 14), I was 3 books behind schedule.
This is where things started to unwind. I was behind schedule, so I was stressed, being stressed made me unable to focus which made it hard to read, reading less was putting me behind schedule.
Today is day 30.
I have read 22 books.
Am I disappointed that I failed this challenge? Not at all. I NEVER would have read that much or pushed myself to read as much as I did during this challenge. Even though I didn’t hit my goal, I realize my goal was unattainable at this point in my life. I have a baby, a job, volunteering, a big family, and bible studies that prevent me from having a regular bedtime and nighttime routine.
As much as I wanted to hit this goal, the goal wasn’t the point. The goal was to read as much as I could and see if I gave up habits like TV, social media, and napping if I would be more productive. I got what I wanted from this challenge and I count that as a success. I know I can go into my next 30-day challenge with some momentum and excitement.
03 READING MATTERS
There are plenty of science-backed reasons to read. It can improve memory, help prevent Alzheimer’s, improve your sleep, reduce stress, improve empathy, intelligence, and focus. For me, reading has always been a hobby I’ve loved. For the last three years, I’ve read 52 books per year and that alone has helped me beyond measure in my business, at work, as a wife, and as a Christian. I’ve become a better writer and learned new skills by reading. There’s an entire community around books and I’ve loved being a part of it.
The question is, did reading one book daily have the same benefits?
I decided to start tracking some of my habits while doing this challenge. I’m sure some of these habits improved simply because I was tracking them and knew they would be made public on this post, but I definitely saw improvements in many aspects of my life because of this challenge.
Sleep, time spent watching TV or scrolling through my phone, and time spent exercising — I tracked these three things in my bullet journal during the challenge, and all three improved. Not only did I get more sleep, but I slept better (even with a baby sharing our bedroom).
I watched less TV and even when football or movies were on, I found that I’d rather be doing other things. I worked out more. It was easy to work out and listen to an audiobook. Anytime I was falling behind on my reading, a run would let me catch up without distractions.
Reading was something I was able to do while I got other work done, like cleaning, playing with my daughter, and cooking, so I ended up with a cleaner home and better sleep.
04 WOULD I DO THIS AGAIN
Honestly, I probably wouldn’t try to read a book a day again. While it was a fun challenge, it wasn’t easy and I feel like I didn’t get the time to enjoy the books like I usually do. I think I could definitely make time to read every day, but set an hour or two to read without any expectation of finishing a book “on time”.
I had gotten into a funk of not really reading much in the last year. Part of it is because I had a new baby, and as any parent knows, your free time goes down the toilet once a baby enters the picture. This challenge was the first chance I got to see how much “free time” I was really wasting doing things that I actually didn’t enjoy much.
As I work toward my next 30-day challenge, I really want to make sure the intention of the challenge is the main focus rather than just checking off the days.
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