Jul 5
I’ve always considered myself an avid reader. I read all the time, but up until recently I rarely finished any of them and had convinced myself that I needed a physical book, which led to an overwhelming amount of half-finished books scattered throughout my house. The clutter was a constant reminder that I wasn’t reading as much as I wanted to, and as that negative emotion built, so did my resistance–I felt like a reading fraud.
I started asking myself if there’s a way to remove some of the resistance I have towards reading so that I can finish more than a few chapters. I also wanted to figure out a way to better integrate what I was learning into my life. Enter: the Kindle. Now, I read every spare moment I can, the book piles are dissipating, and my brain feels more organized and less cluttered. I also figured out a way to better integrate what I’m reading into my life. In this solo episode, I’m on a mission to help you remove your own negative emotions around reading and find the path of least resistance so that you can feel successful and fall in love with reading again, just like I have.
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YOUTUBE
"Even in those instances where I had read an entire book and read it from cover to cover, a couple weeks later I couldn't even remember what I read. I realized I wasn’t integrating the book into my life in any way, which means that I had all this new knowledge but nothing changed because I wasn’t even taking action on it."
- Tracy Otsuka
"I was asking myself if there’s a way that I could remove some of the resistance to reading so I’d be more likely to read more than a few chapters and better integrate what I was learning into my life."
- Tracy Otsuka
"Remember, our brains are meant to think, they are not meant to remember."
- Tracy Otsuka
- Tracy wants to find a solution to read more books without feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of books on their coffee table.
- Tracy struggles with managing multiple books at once, leading to clutter and forgetfulness.
- Tracy realizes they're not integrating new knowledge into their life, leading to forgetfulness and a lack of action.
[12:19 - 24:27] Kindle E-Reader
- Tracy struggles with feeling overwhelmed by the number of books they own and the guilt of buying more, despite feeling successful in their reading habits.
- Tracy has found that using a Kindle has made reading more enjoyable and accessible, as it's easy to read in short bursts, and the resistance to read is low.
- Tracy discovered the app Readwise to integrate book ideas into everyday life and uses it to send podcast ideas to Readwise for later reference.
- Tracy recommends the standard Kindle over the Paperwhite Signature due to its longer battery life and lower price.
- Tracy finds the larger Kindle more comfortable to hold and read, but the additional weight and size make it less portable.
- Tracy plans to create a binder of one-page summaries of books read on the Kindle to help retain information and make it easier to refer back to.
