My Reading Habit

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Cal Newport says on his podcast that he reads 5 to 6 books a month by making reading his default activity.

Cal has three kids, teaches in Georgetown and runs a growing media empire! He still manages 5 to 6 books a month — this adds up to 60 to 72 books a year!

Cal said look at your phone’s Screen-Time report, so I did. I was using my phone 2 to 3 hours a day. That is almost 20 hours a week! A part time job of looking at my phone on top of a full-time job on my computer.

If you ask people, they will say they want to read more but can’t find the time. I found some time to read one book a month. So I decided to make more time.

Here is what I did:

  • Deleted all social media apps
  • Deleted YouTube app, signed out of YouTube on my browser
  • Put the TV in the house where it is not too comfortable to watch it for long
  • Read in the morning before the world wakes up — I read between 6 AM and 7:30 AM
  • Make reading intentional by taking Fleeting Notes and Literature Notes
  • Made reading my default activity as I wait between tasks — so I may get 30 mins during lunch, 15 mins while dinner is cooking and maybe another 30 mins before bedtime

One last but important technique on reading more is to add variety. I sorted my unread books into four stacks.

  1. Easy Fiction — less than 300 pages, easy to read. Leguin, Grace Paley, Ian McEwan are in this stack.
  2. Short and Hard (fiction or non-fiction) — less than 300 pages, academic or classics where the language or subject matter make it harder to read. Virginia Wolf, Jane Jacobs, Michael Oakeshott are on this stack.
  3. Short and Easy Non-Fiction — these are less than 300 pages and are typically not written by academic types, so the language is easy.
  4. Long or Hard Non-Fiction — these are over 300 pages, typically 500 or more pages. Zuboff, Dalio, Ian McGilcrist and Nassim Nicholas Taleb are in this stack

I alternate between each stack. When one stack makes me think hard, another replenishes my brain. When one book takes over two weeks to read, I finish another in a few days.

I finished four books in October, five in November and six in December. The variety surely helped. Removing the habit of phone and TV helped the most!

Van Neistat

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Working To Code is the movie series designed for employees of the Tom Sachs studio referred to henceforth as the studio

This is how 10 Bullets, one of my favorite videos on Youtube begins.

"Working to Code" is a movie series designed for members of the Tom Sachs studio team. Required viewing for all employees and studio visitors. ALWAYS BE KNOL...

If you haven’t seen this film yet, you will find some familiarity with Casey Neistat’s older videos. Casey is Van’s younger brother and Van helped produce 10 Bullets.

I particularly like Casey’s older videos that carried this low-tech aesthetic — videos before his daily vlog days. Here is an example of Casey making a Custom Pennyboard Suitcase.

Casey eventually developed his own style that is great for youtube. I think Casey understands attention in the Youtube world better than most people do. But this post is not about Casey, it is about Van.

I think the low-tech production of 10 Bullets is timeless in the way they do special effects. They are not trying to show off their special effects budget or Final Cut skills. They talk about an idea and show it in a plain and natural way. My brain is making a weird connection here as I write — I am thinking of how Scott Carrier writes. Plain but clear, with impact. Lasting.

Another good video from the time of 10 Bullets is the Nautical Challenge on Tom Sachs’ youtube channel. It shows all three people — Tom, Van and Casey. Think about this video foretelling a trajectory of where Casey and Van have ended up.

The trajectory I want to highlight here is Van Neistat’s new channel — The Spirited Man.

It has the timeless style of low-tech production from the 10 Bullets videos. And there is something refreshing about that.

Glimpse into a spirited man's self-reliant analog world. Meet a spirited woman, too.For an in-depth explanation of this channel: https://www.kickstarter.c...

I went to school for engineering, and engineers like me will recognize the principles of 5S in the way Tom Sachs’ studio is set up in 10 Bullets, and also in the way Casey and Van’s studios are set up. A place for every thing, labels everywhere, shadow boards… etc. Engineers are all too familiar with this way of organizing. The difference I notice here is the strong will of an Artist coming through in the organization of the workplace. I think Steve Jobs called it the intersection of liberal arts and technology. In all the places where I set up 5S ended up with neat lines on the floor and printed labels. Instead, Van’s and Casey’s workshops have hand drawn lines and hand written labels which add life to an otherwise dull process of organizing things.

I think this artist-in-action is rare to find in our ever saturated world of DIY’ers and makers.

Something honest comes through in The Spirited Man.

I am Lazy

It has been two months since I did any woodworking. The whole detached garage was painstakingly converted into my woodworking studio. I have not visited it once to do any work. I have been busy though, but not this busy.

I took a break from the channel a week before my wedding. I made a video about it.

My parents visited a week before our wedding and stayed with us for six weeks. I see my parents once every other year, so we have a lot to cook and a lot to chat. This obviously took priority over woodworking, or even any youtubing.

My parents left us mid-May which means, technically, I had half a month to start woodworking again, and youtubing. But I haven't.

My channel has doubled in subscribers in the last two months when I did not upload a single video. I went from 145 subscribers to 295 as of this minute. Sometimes, youtubing tends to focus on getting more subscribers and I am surely guilty of that mindset. Maybe somewhere I felt complacent that I did not need to upload videos (and therefore do woodworking) to get more subscribers. This is the wrong way to look at the youtube community. The focus should be on content. Always.

So, the last two months, I have been hiding behind my iPad, watching youtube and Amazon videos just to occupy time. I have been hiding because of where I am in the workbench build process. I am at a point where I will have to fit a tenon into a mortise hole. Actually, eight of those. And I am anxious about it. I am afraid it will be a loose fit, or worse, out of square, or both! So much that I would rather not do it. I have also been tired of posting two videos a week. Recording and editing two videos is a lot of work and it takes time away form building the workbench. The second videos will have to wait for a while till the bench is complete. One video a week will have to do for now.

I need to show some grit. I show grit well in some cases but I also hide in other cases.

So here is my promise. To myself. Not to my subscribers who I love, or to anyone else. Me! I will spend at least two hours in the workshop this week. I have an unfinished mortise that needs chopping. I need to overcome the inertia of not doing. I need to get my momentum back.

Wish me luck.