It was a very relaxing Christmas...no-one to entertain so much laying around watching box sets and drinking mulled wine. I love the stuff. I must be the only person I know who actually uses those little sachets of mulled wine spices that invariably turn up under the tree.
The New Year has started pretty quietly too. We excelled ourselves at work and need only nine completed claims in January to stay on course with our targets (normally it is in the high 60s). We achieved that last week 😁 so my work is a bit threadbare at the moment. Martin is likewise quiet on his delivery - Amazon has taken away its delivery business and now has a delivery department so the major rush didn't really happen before Christmas or in the New Year. No bad thing - I've never seen Martin so relaxed in the run up to Christmas in the 16 years I've known him.
All this has meant that we are both getting a little 'itchy' for something to do. I'm taking part in the 20 20s for 2020 (see my last post) on MSE so I have lots of interesting little things to do each day in 20 minute spurts. Saying that, however, I'm still feeling a bit...unchallenged, as is Martin.
That is, until he scampered into the room last night and declared he was going to build and fly a model aircraft from bare plans by next Tuesday. He said he needed something to really challenge him to blow the cobwebs away. He had everything he needed to do it and was going to start today.
His enthusiasm was so infectious I was suddenly overcome with a desire to do something as well. As one of my goals is to read 60 books this year (20 each of classic fiction, non-classic fiction and personal development/career), I thought I'd kick start the process by setting myself a '7 books in 7 days' challenge while the company is quiet and my inbox temporarily empty.
I let Martin loose in my unread collection of books and he chose the seven:
He chose War and Peace as one of them. 😱 Evil man.
So today I got up early and made a start. I selected the book that was the smallest and had a decent sized font, on the basis that I would get a quick win under my belt. That ended up as Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.
I've always been a quick reader. I learnt that if I a) hold the book further away and b) take in 3-4 words at a time I can read faster. Most people read one word at a time. Sometimes, depending on the font and print size, if I put my finger in the middle of a line I can see the whole line in one go. I could probably read faster with proper training but I'm concerned I would sacrifice comprehension reading fiction. I did try once a few years ago - I ordered a photoreading course but the first exercise, designed to set a baseline from which I would improve, saw me achieve a score of 9/10, rather than the expected 1-2/10. I ended up sending it back. Tim Ferris has an interesting article here on how to increase your reading speed - it's quite technical but good.
Anyway, I set the timer for one hour of focused reading, interspersed with one hour of work, each one giving a different part of my brain a rest. I was reading about 75 pages an hour and it took 4hrs and 4 mins to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've only ever seen the film To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck once in my life but it made a strong impression on me. This book was everything I hoped it would be and I heartily recommend it if you haven't read it.
I'm going to cook dinner shortly and then it's on to book 2: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I've earmarked War and Peace for the weekend - I'm going to need two full focused days for that one!
Wow, well done - I can't remember ever (as an adult) reading a book in a single sitting! I do love solid bouts (at least an hour) of reading, although these days, I sometimes have to make do with snatched minutes or pages. Good luck with War & Peace - it's not one I've attempted yet, although I've read the top 3 books in your pile.
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