 So do you want to learn how to read more books? In fact, do you want to learn how last year in 2019 I was able to read over 50 books and then 2020 I'm on base to reach over a hundred. Let's get into it. All right guys, what is going on? Welcome to another episode of the TMJ show and the MD journey. My name is Laksham, internal medicine resident that's been making videos just like this for people on their medical journeys like you succeed with last dress. And today I wanted to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is simply reading books. How can you read more books? How can you find more time? And it seems counterintuitive when you're in busy medical school and residency and as a pre-med, a finding time to do something as luxurious and hobby like as reading. But in this video, I'm going to go ahead and bring you the tips as well as the resources that I use that even despite a busy schedule, you can be on your way to read 50 plus books, 100 plus books, whatever your goal is. But before we get to the tips as always, if you enjoy the content, go ahead and hit that like button to help and support this channel and this video, if you haven't subscribed, then go ahead and join for getting two videos just like this on a weekly basis. I don't want to make you guys wait any longer. So let's get into it. I really wanted to start with three strategies that I use right now currently as a busy medical resident to try to read on average about one book a week. And sometimes I'm able to maybe get to two to three more, but I'll show you guys how. So the first thing that I do to be able to read more books at medical school is I go ahead and set at least 10 minutes, if not 30 minutes a day designed for reading. Now, this can be, you know, wherever in the day that you would want based off of your schedule. For me, I like to do about 10 to 20 minutes at night, 10 before I'm going to sleep, because it's a nice way to wind down instead of spending time with my phone or watching TV. I like to go ahead and just find a nice book that I've been wanting to read at my bedside or on my iPad or my phone and go ahead and start reading about 10 to 20 minutes. And if you don't think you can go ahead and find the energy to read for 10 to 30 minutes before bed and try to go ahead and segment your reading throughout the day, you know, you can probably find five minute time blocks throughout your day, whether it's lunch, waiting for random things, you know, eating your breakfast that you can go ahead and quickly pop open a book or some kind of reading material and read throughout the day. And some other examples that I loved using, especially when I was a student, was things like going to the gym, walking on the treadmill and then opening up my favorite book on the treadmill or on my iPad and starting the process there. And 10 to 30 minutes may seem like too much or too little, depending on who you are and how busy your schedule is. But if you're able to take just even 10 minutes into your day and do it throughout a week, you know, that's over an hour of reading time that you've set for yourself, the amount of progress that you're going to be able to make depending on what you're reading is going to be huge. The second thing that I do to be able to read more books at medical school and residency is kind of what my call my secret weapon, but at this point it's becoming more and more popular and that is reading audio books and making them your friend. I usually have about two to three downloaded on my phone and I'll share some of the resource that I use at the end of the video and I use them kind of throughout different parts of the day. So my drive to work right now is about 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the traffic and the time of day. And that's back and forth. So you can imagine 40 minutes of commute time. That doesn't account for time to have to walk my car, the garage, into the hospital conference room. And so it accounts to about, you know, 60 minutes of walking time throughout the day that I'm not essentially doing anything else to accelerate the process even more as kind of like a bonus tip. I love using the element of speed listing. You know, I've actually made a video about this that you guys can check out, but basically how to train your brain to be able to understand the same amount of information when you're listening at two, 2.5 or 3x. I listened to a lot of my audiobooks at 2.5, sometimes 3x. And if you can imagine, if you're listening to 40 minutes of content through my commute on a daily basis and go ahead and extrapolate that for about like a four hour average of a typical audio book somewhere longer, somewhere shorter, that equates to me being able to read a book every two and a half to three days. You can understand how I'm able to quickly turn through really high quality audiobooks with simply just going through my commute and adding a very high valuable activity during that time. And the next tip to be able to read more books is really something that's able to keep motivated. Sometimes it's not really the lack of time for guards to wear you on your journey. It's just the inability to make yourself wanting to read a book when free time is sometimes kind of a luxury. You know, we want to be able to use that time and watch TV or enjoy Netflix or be on social media. You know, why would I want to read a book? But instead of what I like to do is I want to make myself read about nonfiction topics in areas that I'm pretty weak on. So a good example of this is as I started my YouTube channel, things that I like to read about now are things like public speaking, you know, how to present yourself, how to do marketing, how to record videos and how to gather people's attention, how to do things like Photoshop to be able to make the thumbnails that we do as well as how to run a business, how to manage finances. These are all things you definitely don't learn about medical school and residency. And so you have to be able to find that education on the side. As I continue to create a list of curiosity and things that I'm weak on, I can go ahead and find the top books in that sector. If I read, you know, five or 10 of them, I immediately start to become, you know, above average in my knowledge base in that topic. There's a saying that in the year, if you're able to read, you know, 40 to 50 books in a specific category, you essentially have the equivalent of a PhD because that's the amount of information and books that a PhD candidate will go through when they're preparing their dissertation. So imagine being able to go year through year mastering different topics over the time, essentially having your own personal PhD in that topic. So that concept right there always keeps motivated. I need to learn more. I need to keep moving because learning medicine is super important and I'm going to become a doctor and I'm going to continue to learn in that aspect of my life. There's going to be so many elements of opportunities I have to learn other things. And if I don't take it, if I don't take the time to read, educate myself on missing out. So next, guys, I wanted to talk about some of my favorite resources to be able to read as many books as I do in medical school and now in residency. And I'll start with a free resource. My favorite resource that I used to use as a student when I was tied on a budget is an app called overdrive.com. Now overdrive essentially works hand in hand with your local library. So all you need is really a local community library card, some kind of number. Once you have this, you're able to register with an overdrive account and it basically links, you know, the app that you have on your phone, your iPad to your local library. And you have access to all of their ebooks as well as audio books. Now it's still kind of a checking out process. If somebody else is listening to an audio book that you want, you can go ahead and just add yourself to the wait list. And as soon as it's ready, it'll inform you and you can go ahead and download it. So it's a really nice kind of tool to have access to numerous amounts of audio books, which can otherwise be kind of expensive and still give you the functionality of being able to speed it up, download it, as well as be able to read ebooks at moments of notice. And all of the resources that I mentioned will be linked down below. So you guys can check that out. Now the next two resources that are both under the same company, and these are the resources of Kindle Unlimited as well as Audible.com. Now these are both under the umbrella of Amazon.com, as you guys know. And they're both really amazing resources. My wife actually particularly loves using Kindle Unlimited because it just gives her access to so many books at her disposal. And she's literally turning through fiction book after fiction book. Those are the kinds of books that she loves to read and literally at like twice if not triple the base that I'm able to do that. So she's completely a monster when it comes to reading. She loves using Kindle Unlimited because it gives her such a variety of books to read, both in the nonfiction as well as the fiction category. And if you guys are interested in wanting to try out a 30 day free trial, then go ahead and check the link down below. Now transitioning into talking about Audible.com, it's such a nice interface for those of us that love audiobooks. The one of the biggest pros to me is that they're always bringing out a new stuff. And usually it's from high quality authors where some of the other resources that I may mention or have mentioned may take some time before, you know, the book you really want to read gets on their platform. In addition to a nice library of audiobooks, it also just allows you to have nice functionality, including be able to speed up your content, being able to download it. And if you're not happy with the audiobook that you have, then go ahead and exchange it for another book that you may be interested in. As a fair warning, Audible.com does have a tendency of being a little bit pricier than other resources that we're talking about. But if you're interested in learning more or want access to two free audiobooks, you can go ahead and check out the link down below in the description to see if it works for you. Now I honestly left my favorite resource to the very end, because this is what I'm currently using to go ahead and turn through as many books that I want. And this is Cribed.com. And this is actually a website that was made and existed when I was a college student. And that student was mainly made for people to like share notes and be able to pay for notes and like downloadable content. But now they've kind of gotten into the book game. And so they have ebooks, they have audiobooks, and it's for a nice small flat fee that's cheaper than some of the other resources I mentioned. And I literally use it every single day. There's no limit to how many books I can download, how many audiobooks I can have on my phone and download. And they also are now starting getting into podcast games. You can go ahead and essentially have all your ebooks, your podcasts, as well as other downloadable content. So if you're a med student trying to look at other people's notes for a specific topic, you can likely just go ahead and search Cribed.com. And so you have books, your notes, audiobooks, as well as access to podcasts that are out. It's a fantastic app that I love using. And if you guys are interested, you can check out the link down below in the description. And as a bonus, if you want to go ahead and support my love for reading, this is a selfless plug, the link down below is simply a referral link that gives me access to another free month of Cribed.com. And you guys can also check it out for yourself. Hopefully you guys found this video helpful. Let me know in the comment section down below as well as your favorite tips to read more books that you probably are using. And before we leave this video, I want to talk about something new that we're doing at the end of the video. So if you check out in the description down below, there'll be a link to a survey that'll basically give you the option of recommending any future video topics or things that you want me to talk about on this channel, the podcast, the blog. That way I can get ideas of what kind of things you guys want. And as a bonus, the survey is completely anonymous. I can still give you the resources and the aids you want without you having to drop a comment or send a private message. So that link will be in every single video from this point on. So again, if you guys are interested, check that link out. That's basically it for this episode. Thank you guys so much for tuning into the TMJ show as well as a YouTube channel. Make sure if you are watching the video, then go ahead and hit the like and subscribe button as well as the notification bell. And if you're listening to this on a podcast, go ahead and consider subscribing as well as dropping an honest review on iTunes to be able to support the channel and get us in front of more and more people. Thank you guys so much as always for tuning in. Hopefully I've been a little help to you guys on your journey. Thanks for being a part of mine. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.