To answer this question, I’d like to tell a story. Full disclosure: This is an edited version of lesson 6 of my free email course, Time 2 Read.
Barney Stinson’s First Second Date
“Sooo, this was fun. Can I call you, or?”
For the first time in his life, Barney Stinson asked for a second date. Across the table in the lovely 1920s style diner sat Nora, one of Robin’s co-workers, and likely the first girl to ever give Barney Stinson a hard time – let alone match his intellect.
“Barney, you’re funny, handsome and really quite clever. But you’re also a sociopath.”
The two had spent the previous two hours listing and listening to all the lies Barney had ever told to get laid – not what most people would call a fun evening, but a necessary spree of honesty nonetheless.
“Well, I count three pros and one con, so…“
“How do you still think you have a chance with me?”
“Because you sat here all night? You could’ve left right away, but you didn’t. Look, Nora, all those lies – that’s the old me. But I swear to you, I am trying to change. You make me want to change.”
“How do I know that’s not a lie?”
“I’ll prove it. I will prove how serious I am. I will NOT leave this diner until I get a second date with you.”
“Good-bye, Barney.”
“I’m not kidding! This is a 24-hour diner. I’ll stay here forever, if I have to– and I will!”
Nora can barely hear Barney’s last words as the door closes behind her. She’s gone.
The waitress passes Barney’s table with a questioning look on her face and a menu in her hand.
“Just water for me. Thanks.”
She rolls her eyes and walks away.
“Oh! Ow! My neck!”
Barney groans as he wakes up in the tiny booth of the 24-hour diner. His neck hurts. He’s already been there for nine hours. Ted, Robin, Marshall and Lily stop by to get breakfast.
“I mean…call me crazy, but I’m gonna stay here until I get that girl back.”
After almost 24 hours at the diner, Barney starts blinking as he slowly rises from yet another nap. On his second glimpse his eyes widen. In front of him stands Nora, smiling.
He smiles back. He’s tired. But his persistence has paid off. Thanks to leaving himself no retreat Barney Stinson is about to embark on an entirely new path in life – his first second date.
The Box Principle
Okay now that’s all great and romantic, but what’s the point?
I think the lesson of this story is about 2000 years old. It is an idea from ancient Stoicism, in which you follow just one rule to determine your behavior: focus on what you can control.
In this story, Barney acted like a stoic. He even took it a step further. He realized that in order to better focus on what he can control, he first had to give up a lot of the control he already had.
There’s a very popular quote that tells you to “think outside the box” or even “think like there is no box.”
This is helpful when you’re trying to come up with new ideas, but when you want to execute one, it’s a lot easier to stay inside the box – but it has to be the right size.
The only way to think inside the right-sized box is to build it yourself.
I call this: The Box Principle.
Here’s what it says: Reduce the number of things you can control to make the right choices more obvious.
Of course you want to read before bed at night. But when your iPad lies on your nightstand or your TV is in your bedroom, you just have too many options to pick the right one.
Your box is too big!
Leaving yourself no alternative and giving up a lot of potential options by taking them out of your environment makes it very simple to focus on what you can control, because it reduces your options so much that the right choice becomes really obvious.
What The Box Principle allows you to do is to trade control for consistency.
So how can you apply the Nothing Alternative to your reading?
The D.E.A.R. Experiment
Someone recently told me that at their children’s school, they had introduced something called D.E.A.R. time – Drop Everything And Read.
Today, set yourself a time for when you want to read, and at that time, drop everything and read.
Give yourself no retreat. Reduce your other options to zero. Read – or do nothing.
That means if you’ve decided to read from 7:00 to 7:30 AM, it’d be better to do nothing – nothing at all – and just sit in your kitchen, than to do anything else but read.
A few tips to make this easier:
- If you’re reading an actual book (hard copy or paperback), go somewhere without internet access, like your basement, for example. Leave your phone in another room.
- If you’re using an ebook reader, like a Kindle, set it to airplane mode. Also try to go somewhere without internet access. Only keep one or two books on it at a time.
- If you want to read blog or books you only have on your computer, print a few pages or chapters ahead of time, so you can take those somewhere quiet as well. Or use an app like Pocket or Instapaper to save them, sync them and then turn off Wifi.
- Try avoiding reading on your phone or laptop altogether, as it’s too easy to get distracted, even with airplane mode and other software hacks.
Give it a try!
I hope this story, principle and experiment will help you make time for reading and not give up until you’ve managed to stick to it.
If you’re interested in learning more about the science of reading habits, I have put together an email course with 7 lessons about this topic.
To top it off, I’ve put together a bonus package of 22 (!) free books for you — both fiction and non-fiction. You can get it by sharing the course after you sign up.
So if you’ve enjoyed this post, and if you’re committed to turning a new page, then I suggest you give Time 2 Read a try.