I read a book everyday 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 apart 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.
