Note: This post was modified in 2023 for formatting and brevity

In 2020, I read 52 books, and I have not done the same in 2021.

I started 2020 and 2021 with the same New Year’s resolution of reading a book a week. I had such a great and enlightening experience reading a book a week that I decided to do it again. Setting a yearly reading goal motivated me to read more and got me to fall in love with reading. The reward center of my brain was activated every time I marked a book as “Read” in GoodReads. However, I realized my “love for reading” was centered on finishing a book instead of the process of reading. This notion led me to prefer reading shorter, easier-to-read books over longer books. I remember searching through bookstores for new books, finding one that piqued my interest, seeing a 500+ page count, and immediately putting it back on the shelf. I believe having this arbitrary goal of reading X number of books closed off many opportunities for growth and learning.

Additionally, setting a public yearly reading goal for all of my friends and family to see motivated me to finish every book I started. I felt like I was wasting time if I ever wanted to stop reading a book because it no longer interested me. There were multiple times where I got into reading slumps because I could not start reading another book until I finished reading an unenjoyable book.

“The number of books completed is a vanity metric. As you know more, you leave more books unfinished. Focus on new concepts with predictive power.” - Naval Ravikant, Founder & Former CEO of Angellist

After reading The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, I changed many of my perspectives on reading. I thought my yearly goals for the number of books I have completed were enriching my reading, but they were doing the opposite. I have found that most nonfiction books I have read make 1-2 points and then flood the rest of the pages with examples. Instead of trudging through unnecessarily long books, I will be transitioning to skimming more often and taking essential points from a book (nonfiction) then focusing the bulk of my time on applying those lessons to my life.

Previously, setting a goal for the number of books I have read made me want to finish every single book I started, where it may have been better to stop reading and move on to a more intriguing book. Additionally, I could not pull the best parts out of books and move on because I did not feel like I “read” the book and could add it to my goal.

Consequently, I am setting a daily reading habit goal, not a yearly book count goal, to get more pleasure and wisdom out of the books I read. I have already fallen in love with reading through my year of pushing myself to read more books, and now I can slow down to fully enjoy the books I am reading.