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This is how I end up awake until 2am...

That said I recently went for over two months without reading in the evenings - when I resumed reading (a friend literally pushed a book on me and said it needed to be read within a fortnight) I became notably calmer and less stressed.

To have colleagues note that none of the workload had changed yet I was significantly more with it was startling, and the only change I could identify was the book.



I think my strategy backfires if the book is really good. Personally my night reading is very casual, usually a light non fiction book that doesn't provoke much deep thought.

For me it's mostly about slowing down.


I think it depends on the chapter length.

1. While I'm inside a chapter, I'll keep reading until the end of the chapter.

2. When I'm at the end of a chapter, I will stop if (and only if) I feel that I cannot invest the time to start the next chapter right now.

So short chapters are bad because I will just keep going ("oh come on, only two more pages") and long chapters are bad because I will not even start them. The sweet spot for me was two years ago when I read www.hpmor.com.


for me it's more:

1. While inside a chapter, I'll just finish this chapter...

2. At the end of the chapter "oh, I gotta find out what happens. Just one more quick chapter..."


There's nothing like cracking a book open to read a few pages before bed, then noticing that all of a sudden the sun is coming in through the window and it's time to go to work...




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