Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to buy more books in a time
Speaker 1: when it's challenging to create new adventures or to meet
Speaker 1: new people. Books are one of the best bets for
Speaker 1: discovering new ideas and spending time wisely. Now, I know
Speaker 1: this episode might seem a wee bit self serving. I
Speaker 1: have written several books, and so of course I'd like
Speaker 1: to expand the book buying market. But I am writing
Speaker 1: this episode as much for me as for anyone. Long
Speaker 1: time listeners know that I am chronically cheap. We could
Speaker 1: use a nice word like frugal, but I'm trying to
Speaker 1: be honest here. It has taken me a long time
Speaker 1: to convince myself that buying books is a good investment
Speaker 1: for starters. On a dollar per hour basis, books are
Speaker 1: an incredibly cheap form of entertainment. If you pay twenty
Speaker 1: dollars for a book that takes you four hours to read, well,
Speaker 1: that is five dollars an hour. Of course, it's not
Speaker 1: as cheap as say, free social media sites. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us feel like our lives would
Speaker 1: be better if we spent less time on social media.
Speaker 1: Reading can fill all those bits of time that we
Speaker 1: tend to use for online perusing. If you put an
Speaker 1: e reading app on your phone and buy e books,
Speaker 1: which is what I tend to do, you can even
Speaker 1: use the same device. It is just as easy to
Speaker 1: click on the Kindle app as the Twitter app, but
Speaker 1: I'm guessing one of these will feel like a slightly
Speaker 1: more edifying experience. To spend time reading books, you need
Speaker 1: to have books ready to read, and here I find
Speaker 1: that committing to buying a few more books than you
Speaker 1: otherwise would is wise. You want to always have a
Speaker 1: book that you are looking forward to reading next. That way,
Speaker 1: you will spend more time reading. If you're cheap like me,
Speaker 1: it might help to give yourself a book buying allowance.
Speaker 1: Then make it a little bit more than you think
Speaker 1: you will actually spend. You could even decide that it
Speaker 1: doesn't roll over month to months so you feel some
Speaker 1: urgency to put it to use. That will give you
Speaker 1: a nudge to go peruse a used bookstore over your
Speaker 1: lunch break, or to read reviews in the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal or on good Reads in order anything that you
Speaker 1: think looks interesting. It might also help to think of
Speaker 1: books as a substitute for other activities that are harder
Speaker 1: to pull off these days. Maybe you can't travel to Italy,
Speaker 1: but you could read under the Tuscan Sun. You can't
Speaker 1: attend an in person technology conference, but you could read
Speaker 1: a book about the trade offs involved in various technological
Speaker 1: trends such as cal new ports, digital minimalism. You can't
Speaker 1: go here that inspiring speaker in person, but you can
Speaker 1: read his memoir. Put that way, buying an extra book
Speaker 1: or two a month seems like a great bargain, so
Speaker 1: why not give it a try. It's professional development, but
Speaker 1: it's a lot more fun than most professional development tends
Speaker 1: to be. In the meantime, This is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's b E the number four, then breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartMedia dot com That Before Breakfast is spelled
Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much. I look
Speaker 1: forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.