This year has been great as far as my reading is concerned. In the beginning of the year I made a simple commitment to myself that during my office commute I will read books. In my mind I gave a target to read 36 books. My home to office is a 20 minute metro ride, that gives me a total of 40 mins of reading time daily. I did most of my reading on my mobile and few paperbacks. I made a deliberate shift in my reading habits as I used to specifically devour the business/self help/motivational genre. This year I moved towards fiction and I thoroughly enjoyed my journey. Few of the surprises for me were reading romance and young adult fiction which I personally never thought I would do. Cases in point are works of Susan Mallory and Ilona Andrews.
Books I read in 2014
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Few of my key takeaways from this whole reading project are:
1) Read business books where you can spend more time reflecting on the practical applications of the concepts learned. May be making notes, underlining etc. Otherwise important things may get lost.
2) Read fiction in metro, so I will continue reading them. It helps to de-stress
3) Sometimes speed hinders the experience you have while reading. Dashing to the finish line works sometimes, but sometimes you need to savour the words, the expressions, the emotions and the whole experience.
4) When you set a target to yourself, then your mind works in a different ways. It keep on finding ways to achieve your goal. I personally experienced this during this project.
5) Juggle between E-books and real books- You can never take away the experience on reading a real book even though E-books are more practical in today's times.
6) Romance and young adult fiction is not that bad- In fact I will read few this year too.
7) We can find time in the smallest of places if we want.
This year I will take up something else, what it is I still don't know, but it will come to me soon.
Thanks for reading :)
Aseem
