Nick Hutchison reads 1-3 books per week by carving out specific reading blocks: 30-45 minutes at lunch, audiobooks during commutes, and 30 minutes to several hours before bed instead of scrolling. He also protects at least one 2-hour deep reading session on weekends in a distraction-free space.
Chapters
Hello, Book Thinkers family. Today's video is very exciting, and the reason is I'm going to talk about the Book Thinker secret to consuming way more books than you currently do. People ask me all the time, how the heck are you reading anywhere between 1 to 3 books per week, which is my average pace? I've been doing that for years, so there must be a secret sauce or a secret recipe. Well, I'm going to tell you what it is. All right, drum roll please. You need to spend a lot of time reading. Now I know a lot of people are probably going to cancel the video right now because that's not the secret answer that they were looking for. But I think that's really one of the most common questions I receive. Now, I read anywhere between 1 to 3 books per week. I've been doing that for years. I've developed a compassion and love for reading. I'm passionate about it. I really do love it. And that consistency has been developed through a couple different routines, which I'll talk about in a moment. Now, how are you going to read more? You need to block out more time for reading. My weekdays and my weekends are a little bit different, so I'll start with my weekdays. My Weekdays are highly structured. I have a lot of routines built into them to optimize my time, and they're focused on the activities that I want to prioritize. In the morning, I wake up and I have a morning routine. I don't start reading then, other than a couple things like I'll read a page of the Daily Stoic here and maybe a page of a Spanish book there because I'm trying to learn Spanish. But for the most part, my reading starts during my lunch routine. Every single day during lunch, I spend anywhere between 30 minutes and 45 minutes reading. What that allows me to do is take a big step back from the whirlwind that chaotic daily stuff that you have going on in your day-to-day job, and it allows you to read. My reading is done in a very patient way. It's not rushed, it's not chaotic, it's slow, it's methodical, and it's almost like a form of meditation for me. I really value that, and I do that every day. So right there, Monday through Friday, I'm reading for anywhere between a half an hour and 45 minutes during lunch. Then my end of workday routine, which is also kind of like an evening routine for some people, I'll get some reading done. That's normally a shorter period of time depending on what I'm doing, I'll read for 10 minutes or 15 minutes. If I'm getting into the car to go to the gym, well, that's a different story because now I'm listening to an audiobook. When I'm at the gym, I like to stack that activity, lifting weights or working out, with reading. It's a great way to take advantage of your time and double them up. Same kind of thing with lunch. While you're eating, you can double it up by reading a book. It doesn't take a lot of energy or effort to do so. You're already doing something, you might as well stack another activity on top of it, especially if that original activity is passive. Then the evening routine, or the late night one, the one that I use before I go to sleep. Every single weeknight before I go to sleep, I'm reading. I'm taking a big step away from my phone. I'm leaving the superficial world of social media behind, and I'm intentionally reading something that's going to make me smarter, that I can take advantage of, a tool that I can potentially use in my tool belt for a future situation or obstacle that I can help overcome. It's so motivating to me to use that time to go to sleep. Now also, there are other benefits of reading before you go to bed. You're not getting any of that blue light that helps keep you up. You're helping to reset your circadian rhythm. There are so many different benefits. Now, I love reading physical books before I go to sleep. I never listen to any audio, and that is anywhere between 30 minutes at a minimum and anywhere sometimes like 2 hours or 3 hours before I go to sleep, depending on the workload and what else I have going on that I need to finish up prior to reading. But that enables me to get a lot of reading done. Now, people ask me all the time, well, what about Netflix? What about social media? I've just simply replaced those activities with reading. I genuinely find more fulfillment. I get more energy. I find more short-term and long-term satisfaction in reading than I do watching Netflix. That's not something that appeals to everybody. A lot of people find that either offensive and find the need to defend Netflix or whatever the activity is as more relaxing than reading. For me, reading is extremely relaxing. It's a way to wind down. It's a way to find genuine enjoyment in what I'm doing, the same way that people find it on a screen. I just think that there's an opportunity to find more long-term fulfillment in reading than there is in Netflix. Both of them provide short-term fulfillment for sure. So I get a lot of my reading done on weeknights. Now weekends are a different story. Weekends, you know, everything's always different in my weekend schedule. I'm here, I'm there, I'm everywhere. I'm traveling, I'm with people, I'm out. It's a different time for me. It's definitely a lot less structured. But at the very least, I make sure that I get at least one 2-hour deep reading session. For me, deep reading means putting on headphones, phones, taking a stimulant like coffee or something like that, getting that caffeine in your system to enhance your focus, and then plugging into a book, making sure that there are no disruptions available to you. You're not checking your phone, you're not checking social media, you're not allowing the whirlwind of the world to be around you while it's happening. I like to do it in isolation, and that gives me at the very least an opportunity to get some reading done on the weekend. So that's my secret. I just spent a lot of time reading. I've replaced other activities with reading. And I've built it into my routines, my different routines. So with that, I hope you found some value. If you've made it to the end of this video, thank you for watching, and I hope everybody has a fantastic day. All right, bye.
