Two Chapters

Cal Newport, one of my favorite writers and people in general, has been speaking a lot on his podcast about the two chapter challenge. Each day he tracks whether or not he read two chapters. Simple, right? Yes, but why is this the metric?

Well as he found, and as I have found through joining him and many others in this challenge, reading two chapters a day is both very doable and easy not to do. It's a goal that both stretches our capacity and forces intentionality, but without causing us to snap from the goal being too hard or out of reach.

What I love about it most is that it forces me to reduce screen time. If I want to read two chapters each day, then I'll need to decide to pick up a book instead of picking up my phone again, or read instead of watching a YouTube video.

There are a couple reasons I wanted to share this challenge with you:

1 - If you're interested in joining this challenge, let me know. I'd love for us to hold each other accountable and talk more about the fantastic books we're enjoying.

2 - The reason this metric works is because it causes us to stretch, but not snap. If the metric was reading six chapters a day then it would be super easy to drop the challenge as soon as life gets busy.

So, if you are already reading or reading isn't a desirable goal for you, what is? And what would a stretch-but-not-snap target look like for you?