Three Months Without a Book

A Jim Rohn short on YouTube reminded me how important reading is. I know this. I’ve known it for years. So I checked when I last finished a book.

Over three months ago.

That surprised me. Reading has been part of my system. So I sat with it and tried to understand what actually happened.

The first reason is trivial. This has been the hardest year in a decade. But that explanation falls apart under any pressure. Ten pages before bed is achievable in almost any week. The volume of obligations does not kill reading. Something else did.

The real reason is perfectionism.

At some point I decided that every book I finish should become a proper blog post. Which means re-reading it, taking structured notes, distilling the insights, writing the piece. Real work. Under load, the cost of finishing a book stopped being “finish the book” and became “finish the book and then do hours of follow-up work.” So I just did not start.

The system designed to extract maximum value from reading killed reading itself.

What broke this for me was a simple observation: there are books I read years ago, never wrote about, never made notes on, and I still remember the core arguments, the useful examples, the conclusions that changed how I think. Reading did the work. The blog post was optional all along.

Back to ten pages before bed.