Reading: How To Create More Content Through Learning

Reading: How To Create More Content:

One of the key components to content creation that not a ton of people talk about is reading.

James Altucher wrote a post one time that stuck with me. The article said he reads 4 different chapters of different books every day. Two chapters from a fiction book, one from nonfiction, and one spiritual.

My daily reading is the same as that except I substitute a fiction for a comic book issue.

I found this fascinating because I am all about systems.

When I would sit down to read, I felt I needed to have this big time slot carved out. The end result would be not getting any reading done at all.

With anything in life, your brain can work against you. Whether that is going to the gym, cleaning the house, or reading.

When I overthink about what I need or should be doing, I don’t do anything at all. This is why systems are so important to me. I love having all the pieces of my day fleshed out before my feet hit the ground in the morning.

So for this article, I will be talking about how reading helps me in this content creation journey.

Benefits of Reading:

Reading keeps me accountable more than anything else I do daily. It keeps me focused on my goals. Reading helps me feel accomplished by getting chapters finished. It also elevates my thinking.

Positive thinking and reinforcement will only get you so far. Reading has done more for me over the years than anything else.

My life is better by gaining and using knowledge. The information you put into your life is going to determine your output. Every idea or thought has been had by other people. When we find information in a book, we gain monumental amounts of knowledge on a subject in a fraction of the time.

Every single day I have to hit my 4 chapters a day on various books. I read like a madman because I want all the knowledge on subjects that interest me. Reading also gives me perspective on life. It allows me to see the world through someone else’s eyes. My phone has horror novels, graphic novels, self-help, and spiritual books.

How I Read Daily:

I always start my day with the spiritual book. While I am not a big fan of religion, I use the Bible app. The reason for this is because the app offers articles on certain topics. While not being religious I find the “plans” they have set my mind right for the day.

The second is usually a “self-help” type book. Books about entrepreneurship, positivity, and life hacking. These books help me gain insights into new ideas and perspectives from others lives. Whenever I am at a low point in life, I know there have been others before me that haven’t quit and succeeded.

But that’s not all. I am a HUGE comic book fan. I love everything from superheroes to the more original books. When I was younger and saw Sin City in theaters I loved it. I asked myself if this is this good what else was I missing in the comic book world? This got me back into comics and the rest is history.

I read everything new and old. The passion to learn about the past and future is contagious to me. Knowledge, for me, digests the best in text format and that’s why I recommend reading more to everyone.

I read to travel to other parts of the world and different universes. My phone is a library full of the incredible stories and I would have it no other way. From inspirational to plain fun, I love it all.

Reading Produces More Content:

A constant question I get is how I come up with ideas for so much content. This is your answer.

If I stopped reading I would never have as many ideas and thoughts that I do. My work would not be as frequent and my content would suffer. The plethora of insights I share with you come from reading from a huge pool of different topics.

Our thoughts need to be challenged and saw in a different light. Reading helps me reevaluate my brain and share my discoveries with all of you.

Here is my advice to everyone. If you want to start producing more content while gaining knowledge, you need to read more. Blogs and articles are fine but make sure to have some long-form book that will teach you something as well. I am one person and there are people with a lot more knowledge than me. You are doing yourself a disservice by not consuming some of the best ideas people have put to paper.

Reading will help you understand and deal with issues that may not have come up yet. We need to go outside our comfort zone and see all aspects of the world. Reading accomplishes this for me.

This is my ultimate weapon in creating content. The more ideas I put into my head, the more content gets churned out from my perspective.

Reading has made all the difference in my life and it can for you too. Remember don’t psyche yourself by reading in big chunks. A chapter a day is more than enough. That is 7 chapters a week and it compounds from there.

The habit of reading every day is my secret for content creation. What is yours?