
Why reading 100 books a year won’t make you successful - aytekin
https://medium.com/swlh/why-reading-100-books-a-year-wont-make-you-successful-1863dad5944d
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Maro
Reading is input. To be successful, you have to produce output. If you spend
too much time on input, there's not enough time for output.

~~~
aytekin
It took me many years to build up the courage to go full time on my business.
All the books I read gave me that confidence. I was thirsty for knowledge and
reading other experiences made a difference for me. I had a rough guide about
what was ahead.

At some point you need to stop reading and start executing. But, don’t feel
bad about reading if you still haven’t filled you tank.

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Martolinea
I think speed reading is a great skill but rather for reading articles when I
need to learn something quickly or find specific information - then "scanning"
the text is useful.

For books? Come on... Just dedicate some quality time daily and choose a book
wisely.

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muzani
I agree with the title but highly disagree with much of this article.

Speed reading does work well, but you have to deliberately practice
comprehension. I've read well over a million words in the last month. Fiction
and history books are especially wordy, but are worth reading fast. Ever read
Stephen King? He's got some excellent ideas, but you have to just slog through
the descriptions. I'm grateful I can speed read as it makes the book more like
a story that flows.

But in general, the really good books are very hard to read, because the ideas
are hard to grasp. Going for X books a year means you end up selecting "easy"
(and thus, less impactful) books.

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projektir
I don't think the objective of reading books is to be successful.

This has the same problem as "going to college won't get you a high paying
job".

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RickJWagner
My problem is that I stick with a bad book for too long. I keep thinking
there'll be more 'good' parts, but it's lost time.

I'd probably benefit from reading fewer books, but sticking with quality
material.

~~~
mxschumacher
it took me a long time time to reach the level of maturity as a reader to say
"enough is enough" and dropping books a couple of hours in. "starting what you
finish" at any price is a waste. Life is too short for bad books.

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segmondy
Reading doesn't make anyone successful. Working does. Reading improves your
knowledge if you read the right stuff. Working and applying what you read
improves your odds.

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WheelsAtLarge
Reading for reading's sake is entertainment. You have to actively put what you
learn into action for the knowledge to be effective in your life. You can't do
that when you read 2 books a week.

~~~
setr
The other problem is _what_ you read; if you’re reading 2 books a week...
you’re probably not reading very good books, if only because it would be
difficult to maintain a backlog of good stuff at that pace. You normally build
a library of hundreds of books over a decade, and a thousand books in a
lifetime is _impressive_.

I wouldn’t be surprised if most people reading at this pace have a library
similar to barnes and noble, with perhaps the cult classics of their field.
But I can’t imagine their actually committing to much research in each subject
area, and thus, not much depth

~~~
projektir
Given that many people don't read in the first place, I'd be very happy having
people reading a library similar to Barnes and Noble, and I think this
attitude discourages reading overall. People generally get into reading by
finding things they like first.

I think this falls into an optimization fallacy, where you are trying to
optimize for some faraway conclusion like success and miss the forest for the
trees. Reading, even a fun novel, is very beneficial.

~~~
setr
Sure, but reading 100 books by michael crichton doesn’t offer much value
beyond the first.

My point is that _both_ quality and quantity are important (and diminishing
returns apply). The speedreaders described in the article Im assuming have
focused primarily on quantity, leading to the lack of value derived.

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swingline-747
Felix Dennis called these sort of cargo-cultings "point-at-the-sky guide to
success." If the billionaire points at the sky, clearly that's really, really
important. _sarcasm_ ;)

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COil
He could have written too : "Why reading 1 article a day on medium won't make
you successful".

