Motivated? Sharpen the Saw.

July 11th, 2008          Email This Post        Print This Post

I love to read - it provides the motivation and framework for major changes in my life. I read about 50 books in the past two years, a significant number.
Significant, at least, until you compare it to some other people.
On Wednesday, in an article from Scott H Young, he flippantly mentioned “the hundreds of books he has read in the past two years”. On that same day, I also saw Steve Pavlina say that he read 700 books on personal development before he started his blog.
Wow. That’s a lot.

“Hey wait, I can do that too!”
With tremendous enthusiasm, I committed to expanding my reading. I have queue of 35 books, I can start by tacking those! However, at a reading speed of 420 wpm (granted, the average is about 150-250) that will take a LONG time. It brings to mind the 7th habit- Sharpen The Saw. If someone is chopping trees with a dull axe, it would be foolish for him to say “I’m busy, I can’t stop working to sharpen the axe!”

Instead of throwing myself into reading, I am going to take the smarter approach. It also happens to be a quadrant II activity, which has a longer lasting impact. I am going to use my motivation to practice and integrate speed reading and photo reading techniques.

Sounds funny - by taking a look at the work that I want to do, I have decided to push off starting. But it’s the smart decision - to learn first how to do the work better.

Are you mindlessly working on some goal or project when you should stop and learn more first?

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