If you’re anything like me, your to-read pile grows faster than you can keep up.
Seeing your to-read list swell like this can make you feel as if you’re not reading enough. Worse, it can make you feel overwhelmed and unmotivated.
I felt like this for a long time, when I tried to read as many Substacks, blogs, articles and books as I could.
I ended up feeling frazzled, unable to take anything useful away from what I read. I was rushing to read stuff that turned out to be boring, and then I forced myself to carry on reading it anyways.
This is what happens when wanting to read turns into having to read.
But then, something clicked for me:
I will always have too much to read, and so will you.
There will always be another book, article or blog to devour.
Trying to get to “inbox zero” on your reading list is pointless and stressful. Given that you’re probably drowning in too much information, it doesn’t make sense to shovel as much of it into your eyes as you can. That would just turn your brain into foie gras.
In the face of information overload, the skill you need to develop is not how to consume it all, but rather how to pick what to consume and chuck the rest.
So here are my 6 learnings of how I read when I’ve got too much to read. (P.S. these lessons are more for non-fiction).
Let’s dig in.
1 Treat your reading list like a river, not a bucket
I learnt this lesson from Oliver Burkeman’s great essay on this topic. When you save things in to-do lists, your aim is to usually get through the list.
Naturally, you try to do the same with your to-read list, and that’s where the trouble starts.
Instead of treating a to-read list like a bucket that needs emptying, treat it like a flowing river. The information constantly flows by, and you pick and choose when you want to dip your feet in.
The best knowledge comes serendipitously, and reframing your list as a river rather than a bucket is a great first step to fighting the information overwhelm.
2 Build a reading buffet
A few years ago, I was a “one book at a time” kinda guy. I thought that reading one book at a time would make me more efficient, and I’d be able to go deep into the content.
But I found that when things got stale, it actually stopped me from moving onto other books when I needed a break.
So now, taking on Naval Ravikant’s advice, I have a few books on the go at any given time. When I get bored of reading one book, it’s nice to know I can jump to another for a little while, before circling back.
This keeps my reading fresh rather than forced.
Even better, it helps me cross-pollinate ideas between books and boost creativity.
It also means when a book is boring and I want to stop reading it, I’ve got other things I can jump straight into.
Having a reading buffet of 3-4 “live” books at a time also helped me implement the next lesson, which is…
3 If it’s boring, stop reading immediately
This was a hard one for me to learn, but by far the biggest lesson of the lot.
You have no obligation to finish what you start reading. None. Nada. Zilch. Zero.
So when the words get boring, put the damn book down, and don’t feel like you need to grind to the end. This isn’t school. There’s no mandatory reading list.
You’ll always have too much to read, so don’t waste time on the boring stuff.
At this point, you might argue that sometimes it’s good discipline to finish what you start, or that you might miss out on some key information if you give up too quickly.
I don’t think those points are wrong, but I do think that valuing them over making reading fun and interesting is a mistake.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3afdeaec-3581-4cf0-8b42-bd4f32f7fb98_1052x1318.png)
4 Take the high-level message and move on
If you’ve read 10 books on productivity, the 11th one is probably not going to change your life.
You probably already know a lot about how to be productive, so maybe all you need from this 11th book are the end-of-chapter summaries.
So take them, and move on!
Sometimes, I’ll flick through the contents page, and dip right into the interesting chapters to get what I need, before shelving a book for good.
Some of you might ask - why not just read a book summary online? To this I say, your key learning from the book might not be the same as the person who wrote the summary.
When you are the one doing a high-level review of a book, what jumps out from the page for you is probably going to be quite unique - and that’s the thread you should be pulling on. Not the generic book summaries online.
5 Make sure your to-read pile grows faster than you can read
That’s right. Instead of trying to keep the list manageable, do the opposite. If there’s anything remotely interesting that you may want to read, just put it on the list.
You’re never going to read as much as you have on your list. And so, there should be no pressure on how long your list gets!
The benefit of this strategy is that now, your reading list becomes a fertile, varied and growing library that you can dip into, rather than a stale collection of 10 books that have sat there for months.
The more choice you have when you’re picking something to read, the easier it is to find something that fits your mood. And what better place to start than a curated collection of things you might find interesting!
That’s what the reading list should be for.
and I seem to have converged on a similar strategy on Substack too. recently asked us how we keep on top of the 300 plus Substacks we subscribe to… and the answer is, we don’t. But by being generous with our subscriptions, we give ourselves the option but not the obligation to read some interesting stuff.It keeps the inbox vibrant.
Marc Andreessen does the same thing on X: he follows people on the basis of 1 good tweet, but also reserves the right to unfollow people on the basis of 1 bad tweet.
So give yourself abundant options, but then…
6 Prune your list regularly
You’ve probably heard of the advice about not rushing into things, and sleeping on big decisions for a while.
The same can be said for your reading list.
If you become generous with adding to your reading list as soon as you come across something interesting, you’ll have no choice but to let stuff sit there for quite a while.
Then, as you go back to prune your reading list, it’s easier to knock off the stuff that starts to feel stale. But the interesting reads? They will continue to sound interesting.
As Marie Kondo would say, if it doesn’t spark joy after a while, chuck it out.
I personally do a prune every month, but you can test to see what frequency works for you.
This pruning keeps your list alive, and now there’s nowhere better to pick what to read next than your own reading list.
So with that out of the way, happy reading!
Recommended reading from Substack:
💰
talks paywalls and invites your thoughts on a survey about them.🏞️
asks why we call it a stream of consciousness.🍄
shares how a psychedelic journey can feel like years of therapy.❌
on the power of proving yourself wrong.😬
asks: is it anxiety?💬
shares some top tips on CTAs.
Recommended reading beyond Substack:
A Few Short Stories - Morgan Housel.
I follow a very similar strategy. I generally read or listen to (only while driving or doing something mindless) 3-4 books at a time on different topics with a mix of fiction and non-fiction. I generally avoid reading a book that is more than 300 pages, as I like to read more than one book on a topic to learn from more than one person or not try to get everything from a book. If I do not like a book, I stop reading it.
I found Morgan Housel has some good recommendations, especially this list of 23 books:
https://collabfund.com/blog/23-books-that-changed-my-life/
My bucket list has over 200 books, and it is growing.
Cross polinate!!! :))) Yes! Love that!
Thank you!!!