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How I read 21,310 pages this year

It was getting down to the finish line... But as of 10:05 pm, I just finished the last book to achieve my reading goal for 2023. While my reading app asks for a book count goal for the year, my primary reading goal was 20,000 pages. I hit that a few weeks back, but since I am competitive, I couldn't stand to see both goals not met.


Goal accomplished. Now on to 2024....

 

I am a voracious reader. However, I am not a fast reader; I am a steady reader. I average 40 pages an hour. Today, I engaged a post on X (Twitter) from someone seeking tips on how to find more time to read. So, I thought it would be helpful to write a blog post on how I utilized my time to read over 20,000 pages for 2023.  

 

First, I will start with an assessment from John Piper he posted some years ago. He was discussing reading habits and trying to encourage people to read regularly. He said, 

 

Suppose you read slowly like I do, about 200 words a minute — which may be this pace I’m talking right now, I don’t know. If you read 15 minutes a day for one year, you’ll read 5,475 minutes in a year. Multiply that by 200 words a minute, and you get 1,095,000 words that you would have read in a year.

 

Now, an average serious book might have 360 words on a page. I counted a bunch of them. So you would read 3,041 pages in one year during that 15-minute slot a day. A serious book would average maybe 250 pages? Lots of books are just 150 pages, but let’s just say a good, solid, serious theology book would have 250 pages. I just flopped one open yesterday that I got in the mail. It was 250 pages. That’s 12 very substantial books, all in 15 minutes a day for the average slow reader.

 

Piper's assessment is quite helpful. 15 minutes a day and one can knock out 12 substantial books for the year. But for the theonerds, 12 books won't get you anywhere close to the 25–50 books purchased each year. How many of you have a pristine set of the 38-volume Schaff Church Fathers Series? You know who you are. Other than stamping your custom logo “ex libris John Doe” on the inside of each book, you have yet to crack open a volume and dig in. Some of you skim through a few pages, thinking eventually you will get to it, only to see your good intentions fall away and those books become John Does on your shelf. 

 

I think Piper's assessment is a great place to start, especially for those who work many hours and have large families. But the key is making 15 minutes part of your routine that you do not compromise. And I think with little effort, dedication, and commitment one can maintain 15 minutes a day. But how does one get to 20,000 pages? If we are doing Piper's math, you would need to read 97.5 minutes per day. For some of you, that much time spent per day reading could lead to marriage problems. But I have a solution for that. 

 

Once you have established the simple 15-minute routine, to get serious about that 20,000-page goal, I recommend getting some sort of book-tracking app. Two reasons: 

 

1) You will never know how many pages you read if you don't know how many pages you have read. 

2) Seeing a number to go after (generally) drives you to go after it.

 

The tracker I use is called Book Tracker, which can be found at the App Store. It is only for iPhones. I am sure there are other book tracking apps for Android users. This tracking app does a book goal for the year, not pages. For 2023, I just put in a goal of 55 books, but I chose to go after a page-count goal of 50 pages per day. I ended up finishing with 58.5 average pages per day and hit the book goal. So, how did I do it? How can you accomplish this goal? Manage your time. That is key!  

 

Before we get to the steps, I am sure many of you might be thinking, "I will just get up early every morning and read." That is a good strategy and may work well for you. But here is what can and does happen, thus derailing consistent reading. 

 

If you are like most of us, you have family events, church events, dinner at a friend's house, Bible studies, kids' sports, etc., all of which tend to go longer than planned. You get home late, or people are at your house late. You are tired and think, "Oh man, I need to get up early to read." But you don't. You set the alarm for an hour later. Since that time is slotted for reading, you miss out on reading altogether. 

 

This also happens. You are spending time with the family and someone wants to do something that will push you to your bedtime. The anxiety creeps in and you waver back and forth on whether to say yes to it, but because you don't want to be a jerk, you say "OK." But all the while in the back of your mind you think, "Great, I won't be able to get up early to read. I already missed today's reading because the Bible study went long, and now I am going to miss another day of reading." Though you say "yes," everyone can see you are distracted and distant. Your wife senses the disconnected attitude, and now you are in trouble. See how easily you can miss two days of reading and one night of sleeping in your bed (because you got banished to the couch)? 

 

These steps will (hopefully) avoid all those problems.  

 

This is how I did it:

  1. Always have a book with you.
  2. Always be listening to a book in your car or while exercising (this is good for those just going for total book count. 10 of my 55 books read were audiobooks, which don't contribute to page count—no cheating).
  3. Whenever you are waiting, read (Doctor appointments, oil changes, tire rotations, kid's piano practice, soccer practice, etc.)
  4. Create a reading culture in your home. Everyone reads. Everyone understands reading is vital to our growth as Christians, so reading time (especially the Bible) is vital. Each family member respects each other's time for reading.
  5. Read at work on your break/lunchtime. My lunch break at work is 1 hour, and I read 55 minutes of it. For most of us, this is where you will make your greatest gains. 
  6. Husbands: Take your reading to the couch and read next to your wife. Those who are seminary students, pastors, or scholars, don't read in your study unless necessary for writing, homework, and/or sermon prep. If you make this shift in your reading habits, your wife will be delighted that you are spending time with her. Our wives want to be around us; they want to be included in what we are doing. Instead of resenting our study space, seeing it as something that takes us away from them (or the family), it now becomes something we do together. Importantly, it gives our wives direct access to us to ask questions about Scripture or whatever else they are reading; it becomes a time for us to lead and disciple our wives. If we are locked away in our study/offices, our wives will tend to not want to bother us. We should never want them to think that way. 
  7. Get an LED neck reading light. My wife struggles sleeping when I am not next to her and keeping a light on, even a night-stand light, can make it hard to go to sleep. I am a night owl, so I stay up a few hours later than my wife. After we pray together in bed, I put on my neck light, which just illuminates what I am reading, and she peacefully goes to sleep. 
 

I understand that some or many of you might have little ones running around, so not all of these practices are suitable to your situation. I am 44 and have one daughter who is 18 years old. So, our house isn't chaotic. But I think you could apply some of these tips that would benefit you tremendously. Again, the key is time management. 

 

Get a book-tracking app, get reading, get tracking, and hit your goal for 2024!

 

Happy reading!

 

~ Romans 11:36 ~

 

 

 

 

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