Can I just stay in the car?

You've told yourself that you want to start reading more... that you want to start filling your brain with the good stuff.

Well, it's easier than you think... you just need to stop making the excuse that you don't have time.

Reading more books this year doesn't mean you need to find more time in your busy schedule to read, it means you need to allocate time to it. You allocate time to other leisure activities like TV, Netflix, parties, etc. The same strategy applies to reading.

Today's PRSUIT reviews 12 ways to help you read more and get more out of it.

↓ Keep scrolling to read today's PRSUIT. ↓

HOW 25 SIDE HUSTLERS MADE THEIR FIRST DOLLAR.

Check out this special podcast episode from Side Hustle Nation that interviews 25 side hustlers on how they made their first dollar on the side. I found this to be short, to the point and very inspiring. Just look at the variety of side hustles: stock investing, photography, computer repair, ebooks, blogging, etc. If you've been thinking about launching your first side hustle, I hope this inspires you to start today.

I'M NOT A BUSINESSMAN. I'M A BUSINESS, MAN ✔

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Last year, I read somewhere north of 100 books. This isn’t because I had nothing to do or because I’m a fast reader, but simply because I followed a few simple strategies that let me read a ton.

Here are some things to help you read more.

1. Stop Reading (and especially watching) the News. Read books instead. Remember Lindy’s rule, what has been talked about for 1000 years will likely be talked about for another 1000 years. Kim Kardashian’s ass will not be. I talk more about this here.

2. Stop Watching Mindless TV. An hour a day is fine, you need to de-compress. But marathoning Netflix over a jar of ice cream because you don’t know what to do with your time is a sign you need to change something in your life.

If your life is so stressful that you have to watch 3 hours of the food network or CSI each night, that’s a sign you need to change what you’re doing with your life or learn better time / stress management.

3. Stop Reading Buzzfeed and other Blogspam. Popularity does not equal Importance. Facebook’s algorithms are designed to put stupid sh*t in your feed.

4. Don’t Mix Work and Socializing. You should either be working, or socializing. You can’t do both at the same time. If you’re a student, don’t go to the library with a group of friends to “study together.” What you’re actually going to do is goof off until 2 am when you realize you don’t know the material and thus have to pull an all-nighter. But don’t worry, you’ll get to brag about how little sleep you’re getting.

5. Cut Back Email. Not entirely cut it out, obviously, but stop checking it every 2 seconds and DEFINITELY turn off the phone notifications.

I found a great trick for this that allows me to only check my email once a day. You can set up a pushbullet alert for the two or three people you WANT to respond to immediately (for me that’s my partner on Programming for Marketers, as well as a couple other work colleagues) and then respond to everything else once a day when you’re already in a bad mood. I find email rarely cheers people up.

6. Facebook / Social Media. I have bad news. There’s very little new stuff on Facebook from 20 minutes ago. And if you’re a normal human being you probably only REALLY care about 5–10 people. Maybe 20 if you’re very extroverted. You certainly don’t care about 800. And Facebook tends to make us depressed. Read a book instead.

7. Read in Transit. If you drive to work, listen to audiobooks. If you ride a bus, read on it. Stop playing candy crush. If you’re walking around campus, listen to audiobooks, or if you’re feeling bold you can read while walking. People might give you weird looks. Don’t worry about it. They probably don’t read much.

8. Binge Read. When I say I read 2 books a week, that’s an average. I usually read half a book a week, or 5 books a week. Sometimes you fall out of it, which is fine, but then you make it up with bingeing. I’ll sometimes discover an author (as I recently did with Robert Greene) and proceed to devour all of their works in a very short time span.

9. Speed Reading. It’s a joke. Stop trying to cheat the system. I once tried to speed read Walden. That defeats the entire point of reading the book. Speed reading is useful in only two situations: 1) When you’re reading something like the news which isn’t important enough to read carefully (in which case, why the hell are you reading it?) or 2) When you’re just speeding through a book to create your own spark notes. This second version has some justification, and it’s what I’ll do if I can’t get in to a book but believe it might have some useful info. But when you do this you lose the details and only get the high level picture. That’s fine sometimes, but if you read For Whom the Bell Tolls and all you get from it is that they blew up a bridge you’re doing it wrong.

10. Quit Books. I quit books all the time. My best friend insisted that Flags of Our Fathers was amazing. I couldn’t stand it and quit 20% in. Do more of this. You have no obligation to finish a book. If an author sounds like a charlatan, if it doesn’t hold your attention, if there’s something else you should be reading, quit.

This is one of the biggest reasons people don’t read more. They start a book that someone else said they should read, they don’t like it, then they don’t want to quit it so they simply stop reading at all. If a book doesn’t make you want to ditch your 2nd tier friends to read it then you shouldn’t read it at all.

11. “I’m supposed to read the classics.” No you aren’t, not if you don’t like them. Read what you want.

12. Build a System. Systems make things as easy as possible. If you can create rules for yourself that make sure you get your reading in, then you’ll have no problem finishing books. Here’s mine.

All the tech goes off at 11pm. I get in bed (or sit on a cushion) and read until I can’t keep my eyes open.

When I eat alone, I read.

When I walk, I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or I read

When I workout, I listen to audiobooks

When I wake up, I read while I make tea, unless I have a huge inspiration to write.

Alright, you’ve got 12 easy steps. Go do it. I believe in you. Be a reading machine. You’ll feel great about it.

If you can’t stop thinking about it… do it (and in this case… buy it)

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Perhaps the reason is because they represent something more than just an affordable, well-made, stylish watch.

They represent possibility…. what can happen when you fully commit to something.

The two guys behind MVMT dropped out of college to pursue their dream of disrupting an outdated retail model and created an online-first brand of watches unlike anything ever created.

Oh, and at the time, one of them was $20,000 in debt and working as a valet.

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We love their story and they love our subscribers… so they’re offering you all 15% off all their watches, sunglasses and accessories using code “PRSUIT”

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You don’t have to be a watch nerd to appreciate what they’re doing. I don’t know about you, but we can’t all exactly drop $500 or $1,000 much less the price tag for a Rolex, Tag Heuer or Hublot. But we want a stylish, well-made watch that is affordable and looks good.

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