Regular reading: calendared event or whole day event?

K

Kloun

0
Some thoughts. I would like to make a progress in some fields: sports and professional reading. So I try to make it every day or two. With sports it's easier for me because I do it as long as I come home. I have a gym at home. It's like a routine and it's not connected to any particular time - just to me appearing in my house :)

It is difficult to setup a reading routine. I need not more then 30 minutes for that. I do not have time to read at home (coming at 6-7 pm, then 1 hour for sports and something to eat and family time). So I have to do it at work. First, though I'm a sales director, I feel confused when somebody jumps into my office when I read. I feel like a student caught by a professor :oops: But that's not the main problem. I was trying to schedule reading in my calendar. A lot of times I had to move that time because of customer meetings and find I have no time to read this day. If I put it as a whole day event (I use electronic setup) in my calendar then I find that usually there's no even 30 minutes in my schedule.

Maybe there's no solution to this problem. Then I need motivation and support :D
 
I wouldn't schedule it. It is a quick activity that can be fit into the small gaps in your day. Keep a pile of reading on your desk, where it is visible and you are likely to grab it.

Think of it as an opportunity to have a mental change of pace. You wouldn't do hard physical labour for 8 hours straight, you'd change to some lighter activities at least for a short time during the day and then go back to the hard stuff. After doing some hard mental/people related work, take a 10 minute break to read one article before moving back to your lists to do some more hard stuff. Keep magazines bookmarked, so the next 10 min break you have you can just pick up where you left off and keep reading.
 
No time for reading? Audiobooks?

Kloun;91800 said:
Some thoughts. I would like to make a progress in some fields: sports and professional reading. So I try to make it every day or two. With sports it's easier for me because I do it as long as I come home. I have a gym at home. It's like a routine and it's not connected to any particular time - just to me appearing in my house :)

It is difficult to setup a reading routine. I need not more then 30 minutes for that. I do not have time to read at home (coming at 6-7 pm, then 1 hour for sports and something to eat and family time).

(...)

Maybe there's no solution to this problem. Then I need motivation and support :D
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Maybe there's no solution but isn't it a food for thought that at home you've got time for 1 hour for sports, several hours for family (isn't it TV? ;-) ) and no time for reading?

Maybe audiobooks during sports are THE solution.
 
I don't have gaps in the day. If I had I would place it as a whole day event. And I read not articles but professional books. In the evening I have 2-3 hours that filled with family activities (games with children, homework, TV, emails, etc).
 
Books need a whole different strategy. I'd recommend Tony Buzan's book "The Buzan Study Skills Handbook" which describes how to study using mind mapping techniques. The book is aimed at students, but just as applicable for anyone reading textbooks. I would block out time in your calendar to do this.
 
Ultimately what you're saying is it that you want to do something you have no time for right now. So there arent really many options.

1 - dont do it
2 - give something up and do it
3 - be creative and find a way to do it that may not be obvious - have a family reading time, get audiobooks, get the bus/train/tube and read while you travel, stay up late to read and learn to nap in your lunchhour instead, read at lunch and eat while you work, do a really intensive 30 minute work out twice a week and spend that time reading instead, learn to speedread, work flexible hours, work one day a week less and hope that your development earns you more in the long run, give up your weekend activities, find a shorter book

GTD wont put more hours in the day if your schedule is truly filled. But it might help you decide whether its important enough to find a solution for it.
 
I agree with all the advice given here so far. If you’re new to GTD, I wonder if this a symptom of not yet understanding the limits of the system: if you want to read less than you want to do all that other stuff and that other stuff never goes away you inevitably won’t ever read. GTD isn’t going to be able to solve that. You either need to change priority so that reading is more important or just feel good that you’re already doing the highest priority things. The only alternate to those two options is to get creative. I’m pretty much repeating bishblaize here.
 
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