For years I have been struggling with two goals of mine: to read more books and to improve my physical conditioning by walking/jogging regularly. Things weren’t terrible, as I was managing to read 6-8 books per year and to walk 2-3 days per week, but my goal is to read 15+ books per year and to walk/job every day.
Sure, these are two tough goals to have, but late in 2012 I came across something that is helping me to get closer to both of them, at the same time: audio books.
I always listened to podcasts (mainly the shows from the Twit network, which I highly recommend), but never got interested in audio books. I even tried to listen to a couple of novels, but found it boring to follow along the audio file.
Then last year I decided to try something new: a non-fiction audio book. The first one I purchased was Liar’s Poker, which describes the experience of guy working as a bond salesman in Wall Street. To my surprise it was much more pleasing to follow along the audio, and I was done with the book within a couple of days.
After that I got the biography of Steve Jobs, Rich Dad and Poor Dad and Getting Things Done. Again the experience of listening to those books in audio format was very pleasing, and it even encouraged me to find more activities where I could be listening to the books.
As a result I started taking long walks pretty much every single day, either as a first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon. Sometimes I will walk longer than I need to just to keep listening to the book.
And don’t worry, I won’t be plugging any company or product on this post. The message I wanted to pass is that audio books can be a powerful tool to help you read more and perhaps even get healthier, so if you are not using them yet you should give it a try.
There’s a project called LibriVox with thousands of public domain audio books, so they are free. As I mentioned above fiction books didn’t do the trick for me. I only find it pleasing to hear non-fiction, so make sure to try both genres to find what works best for you.
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