On Building a Reading Habit

December 2025. Reviewing my year. I’d read maybe four books.

Around the same time I came across this from Ali Abdaal: Think about the effort behind each piece of content you consume. A short-form video — 3 minutes to 3 hours. A YouTube video — 4 to 20 hours. A podcast — a few hours of conversation. A book — years of research, multiple editors, decades of expertise.

This reminded me of my ever-growing reading list — 100+ books sitting there, waiting.

So January 1st I went big. 54 books. Four a month. One hour a day. Blocked it in my calendar.

By week two, my reading tracker told the real story. Missing days everywhere. By week three it got worse — dreading it till 11pm, telling myself I’ll do it tomorrow, all the usual excuses. The calendar wasn’t helping.

Something had to change. Three decisions:

Drop the 54-book goal. I was stressing about the number instead of building the habit. If the habit sticks, the books follow.

Cut one hour to 30 minutes. 30 × 365 = 182.5 hours. From someone who was reading almost nothing, that’s massive.

Never miss two days in a row. The Seinfeld chain method. One missed day is fine. Two is a new pattern.

Now, six weeks in — it’s working. I read almost every day. Most days I go past 30 minutes without noticing. When the book is good, I keep going for an hour. When it’s not, I still get my half hour done.

182.5 hours a year instead of one hour a few times a month. Compounding is something else.