Read More. Read Often. Read Every Day.
Stop Looking for Productivity Hacks. Pick Up a Damn Book.
🍕 I’m JA Westenberg. I write essays about technology, philosophy, productivity, and what it means to be human. If you like ideas that take their time, you’re in the right place.
While you’re here, a few things I’ve built: Kerouac, a writing app | Post Through It, a solo microblogging tool | Distributism.ai, my MCP platform | Laterware, all the AI news you need | Studio Self, a thought leadership agency for founders x VCs.
You can buy my book Permissionless here.
I’m not a true believer in much.
I am a fanatical believer in reading.
I do it early in my day, I do it late in my day, and I do it often.
I keep the Kobo app in my iPhone dock, a paperback in my messenger bag, and my eReader never out of arm’s reach. If I’m waiting in line for a coffee, jumping in an Uber, etc, I’ll be nose deep in a book.
Why?
It takes serious concentration, and I’m addicted to focus.
We keep searching for lifehacks, productivity tips, and bullshit, but the answer is right there. If you want to be better, grow more, understand your life, understand your purpose, learn something, or just find somewhere to stay a while when life gets overwhelming - pick up a damn book.
Why You Should Spend The Majority Of Your Time Reading
The Pareto Principle states that 20% of the effort yields 80% of the results.
It’s the 80/20 rule.
I believe that spending 20% of your time buried in a book, buried in something that will inspire you, excite you, and make you want to jump out of your seat is going to give you the fuel, the ideas, and the power to create 80% of your output.
It’s worked for me so far. Every decision I’ve made, every idea that’s shaped the course of my life, every drop of sweat that I have spent trying to be a better human being, can be traced back to the power of a good book.
In other words?
Damn right you should spend the majority of your time reading.
You should be reading books, newsletters, magazines, and blogs.
Literally anything of worth and value to you.
Anything and everything.
Reading books will improve your vocabulary by 80%.
Readers have a 20% reduction in the risk of dying before their time.
Readers are 2.5 times less likely to contract Alzheimers.
And readers have a better handle on the various weaknesses of dragons - something that may or may not be useful, depending on your career path.
Reading can shape your path
Even if you have a clear as crystal idea of what you want to do with your life, it’s almost impossible to know the correct path to follow.
There are so many things that can happen along the way that it can be tortuously difficult to figure out exactly where you should be going and how you should be getting there.
But you have access to the entire archive of human knowledge up until this point.
In the pages of every book in your library, every book on Kobo, every book on Gutenberg. You have access to every insight worth exploring, and the answer is going to be somewhere out there.
I would guarantee that there is not a single question or problem you could bring to me that can’t be solved with a book that someone has already written.
And it could have been written 1,000 years ago.
What you should spend the majority of your time reading
Books: This is the most obvious. Books are filled with words, ideas, and information that will improve your experience of life. Most of your time should be devoted to books, at whatever pace and in whatever category you’re comfortable with. They’re the purest form of the written word, created with love and care, crafted and honed to their best possible form.
Other publications: There are many other publications, newsletters, and news outlets that can be a good way to spend your reading time. But you’ve got to be careful about it. Reading the news obsessively can completely destroy any time you had devoted to reading, and throw it away in favor of doom scrolling, easily leading you down a Twitter rabbit hole instead of leading you down Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole.
Sometimes you’re going to want to read something that isn’t going to make you smarter.
Sometimes, you’re going to want to read something that doesn’t challenge you.
Sometimes, you’re going to want to read pure trash.
The good news?
Even reading trash is better than watching it.
Even reading trash is still giving your reading muscles a quick workout. That’s never a waste of time. I’m not saying that you should spend the majority of your time reading Star Wars fan fiction. That would be ridiculous, and it might give you some odd ideas (yes, there’s a fanfic where the Almighty Sarlacc gets it on in quite a graphic scenario)
I’m saying that you should give yourself space to read what you want.
It’s the reading that matters.
It’s the journey, not the destination.
Fuck podcasts. I’ll take a book any day.
When people say that reading is not as exciting as watching a movie, or listening to a podcast, I want to f**king scream.
They’re wrong.
Books are full of excitement and adventure. Books are beautiful and detailed. Books are the home of suspense and mystery. Books contain the signals that we have to reach for amidst the noise.
There’s nothing boring about the act of reading.
It might not be scalable. There might be more efficient ways of consuming content. But it’s the only way to retain and explore information that can afford it the respect it deserves.
I’ve never seen the point of blasting through as much as possible, as fast as possible, with your podcast player set at 2x speed. It’s a breakneck approach to consumption that seems harmful to my mind. And it cheapens the content itself.
Just Read It.
Reading gets perceived (by various influencers and hustle-minded assholes) as a waste of time, a distraction from other tasks, or even a leisure activity that should be left for lazy weekends.
Even if it were just a way to pass an afternoon, it would still be the single best way to spend your life.
But it’s not only a hobby - the ability to read is a tool. In fact, if you were to spend the majority of your time reading, you’d be well on your way to achieving happiness, success, fulfillment, and so much more.
Reading is one of the most important skills you can learn, yet it is one of the most neglected.
Reading can help you understand other people, cultures, and perspectives. Reading can help you develop empathy for others.
Reading can help you learn how to write.
Reading can help you become a better thinker.
Reading can help you conquer your fears.
Reading can help you relax and reduce stress.
Reading can help you be more productive.
Reading can help you solve problems.
Reading can help you live a more fulfilling life.
Make some time to hit the library this weekend. Pick up a book from the store on the corner. Go through your shelves and build a stack of books you bought that you’ve been meaning to read. And carve out some time for it.
You won’t regret one single, solitary second.
Nail. Head.
I am seriously worried about my grandsons. They used to be reading books all the time. Not now. My oldest, a junior in high school last year, mentioned The Great Gatsby when I asked him what he was reading in school. But it turns out he wasn't reading it at all. The teacher was reading it to the class! What's the point? I read constantly, like you. My library is on my phone and my iPad, so I'm never without a book. I have been that way since I was five and my aunt introduced me to the public library, which seemed to me to be a magical place. My first book was The Little Engine That Could. I have been an obsessive reader ever since. And I handed that down to my kids. But what will become of a generation whose teachers do the reading while the class daydreams?