Read first

Improve your leisure time by opening a book before your apps

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to read first. When you've got some
downtime and you're a tempted to pick up your phone
and start scrolling. Read for just a minute or two first.

(00:29):
You'll get a lot more reading done and probably do
a bit less scrolling than you otherwise would have. When
people think about what they'd like to spend more time doing,
reading comes up a lot. Indeed, many people claim to
have no time to read, though this most likely isn't true.

(00:50):
Take a look at the screen time function on your
phone and see what the number is. It is probably
not zero. More importantly, it is not all work stuff
like email or phone calls. Either reading tweets or clickbait
articles or posts on Facebook is in fact reading. It's
just not particularly great reading. So the problem is not

(01:15):
finding time to read. It is upgrading our reading material.
It's choosing slightly more effortful reading rather than the effortless stuff.
When you put it this way, this suggests a slightly
different solution than reworking a whole schedule to magically find
more time to read. Instead, try this little upgrade. Every

(01:40):
time you pick up your phone to start scrolling, commit
to reading something more substantial. First. You don't have to
read much. Just a minute is a good start. The
easiest way to make this work is to put the
Kindle app or another e reader app on your phone
and load e books on there. Many of the classics

(02:01):
are free or are available for a nominal price like cents. Indeed,
for ninety nine cents apiece you could get versions of
War and Peace, Middle March, Ulysses, Moby Dick, and Kristin
Lavern's Daughter. You could go download those books right now
for less than the price of a latte total and

(02:22):
have something like a hundred hours of reading material on
your phone now. Of course, I completely understand if you
would prefer something much lighter, honestly me too, But in
any case, there are no shortages of possibilities. You might
try some poetry if that's a way to ease into reading,

(02:42):
and nonfiction is great as well. Then when you pick
up your phone, open the Kindle app and read for
one minute. Most likely you're going to keep going because
most books are pretty good. But even if you don't
keep going, given how many times people pick up their phones.
You will probably read for at least ten to fifteen

(03:04):
minutes a day right there, and that is not terrible. Indeed,
it's a pretty good start. Of course, you don't have
to read on your phone. Reading real physical books can
feel like a treat in this world where we always
feel plugged in. Well, I normally read on my kindle
app this past month, I've read two books as paperbacks,

(03:26):
and I've really enjoyed the feeling of separation from my inbox. Unfortunately,
the problem is that we really do almost always have
our phones with us, whereas we don't have other material.
It's a solvable problem, but one to be aware of.
We don't want to make the perfect the enemy of

(03:47):
the good. In any case, By committing to reading for
just a minute or so first, you are not trying
to set strict limits on your scrolling or trying to
rely on willpower to stay off Twitter or anything like that.
You are simply changing your habits slightly to do something
else first. Then you can scroll through Instagram for an

(04:09):
hour if you'd like, no problem. But by reading for
a minute or so first, you get to have both
kinds of fun, and that is really the best of
both worlds. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for
listening and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

(04:38):
I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
podcast at iHeart media dot com app Before Breakfast is

(05:01):
spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I
look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H