Surely we’d all agree--reading is a good thing. Yet many of us despair that we don’t have time to read. But is that true?
Well, if I may be so bold, I would propose that our problem is not a lack of time for reading, but a lack of planning. And here is my justification for such an assertion. Two separate authors have recommended reading plans that I think even the busiest person would have to say, “I can do that.”
Donald Whitney encourages busy people to “find the time to read one page of a book each day.” He expands:
“It might mean sneaking a page during a visit to the bathroom, sitting in the car an extra two minutes at the end of the morning or evening commute, or standing by the bed to read a moment before crashing into the pillow at night. By reading one page per day you can read 365 pages in a year, or the equivalent of two full-length books. That may not sound like much, but it’s far better than not reading at all.”
John Piper lets us in on his findings:
“One of the most helpful discoveries I have made is how much can be read in disciplined blocks of twenty minutes a day. Suppose that you read slowly, say about 250 words a minute (as I do). This means that in twenty minutes you can read about five thousand words. An average book has about four hundred words to a page. So you could read about twelve-and-a-half pages in twenty minutes. Suppose you discipline yourself to read a certain author or topic twenty minutes a day, six days a week, for a year. That would be 312 times 12.5 pages for a total of 3,900 pages. Assume that an average book is 250 pages long. This means you could read fifteen books like that in one year.”
Reading one page a day or reading 20 minutes a day. Now that’s a plan anyone can do! Wouldn’t you agree?
