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LM: #341: Why I bought a $600 lamp
Lots of people with a scrolling habit would rather have a reading habit.
I was in this same position years ago – and sometimes I relapse. But here’s how I turned scrolling into reading.
The scrolling habit is hard to break because the path to scrolling is the path of no resistance. You pick up a phone or, let’s be honest, the phone is already in your hand for some other reason. You go from being bored, to not.
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For reading to compete with scrolling, you need to remove the resistance.
- Carry a book at all times. When you find yourself reaching for the phone, reach for the book instead.
- Read books with short chapters.Instead of, I don’t have time to start reading, you can jump right in. Daily Rituals worked for me. Look for “epistolary novels” – novels made of letters or journal passages. Dangerous Liasons and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, for example.
- Don’t finish books. If you feel you must finish every book, you will start none. Open it in the middle, read only what interests you, quit when you get bored. It’s better to not finish a book than to finish scrolling.
- Invest in reading. Buy all the things that make reading comfortable, easy, even luxurious. I bought a $600 lamp, which was more than enough to get me to say, Well, I spent all that money on this reading lamp…
Overall, I found I had beliefs and habits about reading that were no match to the introduction of scrolling. When you flip the equation, reading gets easier.
Book: Familia Romana (Amazon) uses an innovative approach to teach you Latin while “thinking” in the language.
Cool: Screen Aware graphs how much of your life you’re looking at a screen.
Best,
David
P.S. I’ve published as a reel on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
