What I learnt from 20 for 2020

The only type of hoarding allowed in our apartment

Previously at the midway point of 2020, I shared a few books which I managed to get through in the first half of the year. Excluding the time at work, most of my weekday evenings were spent at the gym & jiu-jitsu mats, leaving some downtime before bed and the weekends for reading. I found it challenging to find the time and discipline in a busy week to quieten the mind, remove all distractions (the mindless scrolling on Instagram!) and read for more than 30 mins, which meant that I wasn’t anywhere near my goal of reading 20 books.

So I started the latter half of the year observing myself and routines, being curious about my excuses and making incremental changes. Whatever I lacked in discipline, I guess I make it up by being accountable… This resulted in some changes to my routine and reading habits which on hindsight, seemed to work and are here to stay for my 2021.

Three things I learnt:

1. Set the intention — all about allocating time to what matters
2. Read what inspires — experimenting with what and how you are reading
3. Making it accessible — hacking the habit

Final count: 13/20 (those in bold are my favourites)

1. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
2. Factfulness by Hans Rosling
3. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
4. Emotional Agility by Susan David
5. If the Oceans Were Ink by Carla power
6. 坏孩子 by 陈紫金
7. Book of the Dead by Shinobu Orikuchi
8. Sapients by Yuval Noah Harari
9. Bad blood by John Carreyrou
10. The Man Without a Face by Massha Gessen
11. What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes
12. Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
13. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Set the intention (and slots)

While trying to diagnose my (lack of) progress, I soon realised a laissez-faire approach to my reading schedule didn’t seem to work for me. When I had some downtime, my instinct was to work on something more ‘important’, find something more ‘engaging’ or ‘fun’ to distract myself. What I needed was to be more mindful with how I was creating these pockets of time and how I was spending them.

I generally live by my calendar (I would like to think I’m not religious about it but others would be disagree…) and just like how I scheduled gym days, coffee time and date nights, I knew reading had to be featured somewhere. Surely this sounds too regimental right?! But if you’re not allocating time to something, it’s not a priority. I tested this by reading Sapients every night for about a month and surprisingly I got to the last page much faster than expected. Eventually I did schedule it in as recurring appointments on every Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning and as part of a nightly turndown routine. In practice, I did not respect every single slot but it was a good reminder that I had set the intention for the time to be spent reading. More often than not, it triggers me to put my phone aside, pick up my book and take my spot on the couch.

Read what inspires

If I were to do a count of half-read / discarded books in 2020, it would definitely exceed my goal. For some strange reason, I used to feel compelled to finish every book I started. Even when I was struggling to get through the pages, the thought of abandoning the book never crossed my mind… until I stopped reading. I learnt that when I found myself restless during a read, it’s hardly a reflection of the book but my reaction to it as a reader. I was just not in a state to take in its content and messages and it was time to change it up. So I gave myself the permission to read whatever I felt like, in any way that I liked. This could mean doing ‘reading sprints’ — alternating between a few books in cycle of days or weeks (similar to a design sprint), putting aside books when I don’t quite enjoy or skipping a few pages or chapters. Reading sprints really helped me to alternate between light and heavy non-fiction reads like #9–12 on the list. More important than the goal of assimilating knowledge or completing the book, is the reading experience that reinforces the habit.

Making it accessible

When I was young, my mother used to drop my sisters and I off in the library for a few hours and we would build a cave of books around ourselves in some forsaken section. I recall there was a borrowing limit of 4–6 books per person but that was hardly an issue with three of us. So growing up, we were literally surrounded with books at home and in some unintended way, my mother made picking up a book as easy as picking up the remote. I adopted this principle and modified it as a hack for a human living in the digital age.

I was introduced to Weixin Read which is China’s largest e-reader app and for one week, I read #6 everywhere I went on my mobile — in line grabbing my coffee in the morning, pantry breaks, in the loo. When I picked my phone up out of habit to check my emails or browse Instagram, I opened the e-reader app immediately. After that, I also decided to scatter books across the apartment (not difficult if you’re living in one of Hong Kong’s tiny apartments) and always have a book with me while commuting. The more accessible books were, the more I read. On the couch, at the dining table, in bed. The more I tagged it with an existing behaviour, the more intuitive it became.

While 13/20 as a count is by no means getting it right, I do feel these tweaks were a step in the right direction. While it was not a conscious effort to approach this as a design challenge, the principles of observation, trial and error, neuroscience of change were on hindsight, effective. So what’s next? Coming to the end of the first month of 2021, I spent most of it in a 21D quarantine (more on that another time) with plenty of time to reflect, read and create. Being more conscious of my reading list (tough one!) and on the lookout for topics, divergent views and genres outside of my comfort zone are things to work on. Perhaps that’s something I will address this year.

If you are interested in building habits and the science of paper vs. screens in reading:

Stanford scientist: 12 tiny habits that will instantly make you more productive

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens