Why can he read books while working? The "mannerisms" I noticed that I, who cannot read, missed

One of the representative bestsellers and memes of recent years, Kaho Miyake's "Why You Can't Read Books When You're Working".

Shun-kun, from our duo "Tekeshun," who wrote a review of this book and also appeared at Miyake-san's event, wrote an article like this.

"Why can you read books even while working?"

It's a rather challenging title, but this article outlines several concrete points regarding the headline, and I'm sure it will be a helpful reference for many people.

I'd like you to read the details there, but from my perspective, as someone who runs YouTube and note with him, I can't help but think, "Aren't you missing the most important point?"

That is...

Reading a book instead of using a smartphone.

This is a story from the 2024 summer festival, "Summer Sonic".

We were participating for all three days, including the all-night pre-festival event "Sonicmania," and we were staying in a double room near the venue.

Exhausted from walking around all day under the scorching sun, I crawled into bed after a bath, operated my iPhone, and scrolled through my X / Twitter timeline.

The timeline was buzzing with talk about Summer Sonic, and a few of my own posts were going viral.

When I happened to look over, Shun-kun was reading a book in the bed next to me instead of his smartphone.

"Amazing."

I honestly thought so. Because of my family environment, I have been exposed to PCs and the internet since I was a child, so I think I can be called a digital native generation younger than my actual age.

From my perspective, it was, "You're carrying a paper book around!?".

It's not just that he was reading a book, but I was surprised that he even had a paper book among his belongings in the first place.

But, in order to be a reader, I think this is undoubtedly the "ultimate solution."

The basic idea of the book on time management that impressed me, "Four Thousand Weeks", is that "trying to manage your time is a waste in itself," and it feels exactly like that.

Managing detailed schedules and building habits to somehow carve out 30 minutes is important, as every little bit adds up, but there is a significant risk that even such precious time will be eaten up by a smartphone.

In that case, you should just take out a book instead of your smartphone.

By doing this, you not only create time to read books from the ground up, but also eliminate the negatives caused by smartphone use, so it is comparable to a 'rebound being a 4-point play' in basketball.

Amazing.

By the way, as Shun-kun mentions in this video, he apparently reads books even while waiting for a live concert to start, rather than using his smartphone.

"How to reduce the habit of looking at your smartphone" varies in difficulty from person to person, and there are many detailed techniques, but setting that aside, I still think "opening a book instead of a smartphone" is the strongest solution in the modern age.

Even if people around him are surprised, he opens a book so naturally that he doesn't even understand why they are surprised.

This is it. It's like Netero from the manga "HUNTER×HUNTER".

However, I don't have such a habit. Furthermore, despite writing all this, I don't actually want to carry around physical books.

So how do I read books?

Doubling your time with Amazon "Audible"

It is "doubling time through the combined use of audio content".

I mainly use

・Audible
・YouTube

Audible is a subscription-based audiobook service operated by Amazon, characterized by unlimited listening to over 200,000 eligible titles for 1,500 yen per month.

While the library is hard to call perfect, you will always find titles from masterpieces to trending works that make you think, "Oh, I was curious about this."

In fact, I even listened to Kaho Miyake's "Why You Can't Read Books When You're Working" on Audible.

It's not just about it being "easier than reading because you can listen while doing other things." The beauty of audio content is that it can be done in parallel with "actions".

I think the best example of this is while commuting, but what I want to recommend is using it in combination with exercise.

Exercise for daily health maintenance is literally exercise = action. During that time, neither your brain nor your ears are working that hard.

Furthermore, with exercise just for health maintenance, you have quite a bit of free time even while moving your body.

If so, wouldn't it be great if you could read books while getting healthy? It's the feeling of having your time doubled.

By the way, I am writing this article while walking at the gym.

Reading text or reading books is not suitable for "reading" where the act itself is the goal, but if you have a purpose for the content of the book itself, using audio content in parallel is highly recommended.

Furthermore, I mainly listen to book summary content on YouTube. I use it like a "movie trailer" to decide whether I should read the original book or not.

(Kenta Terunuma)

↑Audible. You can try it for free for 30 days.