We have all been there. You open Instagram or YouTube, and suddenly you’re staring at a perfectly curated bookshelf, a steaming cup of matcha, and a caption that reads: “How I read 100 books this year to optimize my mindset.”
Suddenly, you look at the one book sitting on your nightstand—the one you’ve been savoring for three weeks—and you feel a pang of guilt. You start to wonder if you’re “lagging behind.” You begin to treat your reading list like a marathon rather than a journey, racing toward a finish line that doesn’t actually exist.
For years, we have been sold the dream of the “productivity robot.” We were told that to be successful, high-achieving, we needed to consume information at lightning speed. But after falling down this rabbit hole myself, I’ve come to a realization: reading for clout in the name of productivity is often just a sophisticated way of wasting time.
Let’s dive into why the “speed reading” obsession is flawed and how we can reclaim the joy of actually learning.
The Rise of the Productivity Robot
If you’ve spent any time in the productivity sphere over the last few years, you know exactly what I’m talking about. There was a massive surge in content emphasizing speed—everything had to be faster. Speed reading, speed typing (why on earth do we need to hit 130 words per minute?), and rapid-fire consumption.
I think a lot of this stemmed from the collective guilt we felt during the pandemic. We were stuck at home, feeling stagnant, and suddenly these “gurus” appeared to tell us that if we weren’t optimizing every second of our existence, we were failing. We didn’t just want to be productive; we wanted to be superhuman.
I’ll be honest: I fell for it. I let myself be inspired by the productivity gurus and started reading voraciously. In a burst of ambition, I pushed myself to hit an astronomical number. By the end of my “marathon year,” I had finished 55 books. On paper, it looked like a triumph. I had fulfilled my resolutions and then some. I felt like I had achieved some sort of intellectual gold medal.
But then, the crash happened.
The “Hungry Hippo” Syndrome
A few months after my big achievement, I tried to recall the core arguments of the books I had “finished.” To my horror, I realized I couldn’t tell you basic facts about half of them.
I had been reading like a possessed person. I was skimming pages, taking superficial notes, and checking boxes. I was treating books like chores on a to-do list rather than sources of wisdom. I was essentially “gobbling” information like a hungry hippo—consuming everything in sight but digesting absolutely nothing.
The irony is that speed reading does have its place. It’s wonderful when you’re scanning a text to see if it’s actually worth your time or if the information is relevant to a specific project. But when you treat every single book like a sport, you lose the very essence of why we read: transformation.
Wisdom isn’t found in the number of pages you flip per minute; it’s found in the space between the lines where you stop and think, “How does this apply to my life?”
The Illusion of Progress (and the Clout Trap)
Why have we turned reading into a competition? Reading is meant to be an intimate conversation between an author and a reader, yet we’ve turned it into a bragging right.
I remember seeing a famous YouTuber with a thumbnail claiming he read 365 books in a year. When you actually watched the video, the “secret” was that he had read summaries from a website—a website that, unsurprisingly, was likely sponsoring the video. He didn’t read 365 books; he read 365 bullet points.
When we race to finish books for the sake of social media aesthetics or productivity metrics, we aren’t seeking knowledge; we are seeking validation. We want to be able to say we’ve “read” a certain number of titles to feel superior or more “optimized.” But if you are asked about the 23rd book you read in a year and you draw a total blank, did you actually read it? Or did you just move your eyes across the paper?
How to Slow Down and Actually Grow
If you’ve felt the pressure to be a productivity machine, here is my invitation to you: Stop racing.
It is infinitely better to read one book slowly and deeply than to skim fifty books for a trophy no one cares about. A book is like a delicately cooked dish; if you swallow it whole without chewing, you miss all the flavor and nutrition.
Here is how I am redefining my relationship with reading to ensure that I am actually absorbing the wisdom:
1. Embrace the “Slow Read”
Instead of asking, “How many pages can I get through today?” ask, “What is this chapter trying to tell me?” Give yourself permission to spend a whole week on one chapter if it challenges your perspective.
2. Start a Dialogue with the Author
Don’t just be a passive consumer. Question the arguments. Challenge the conclusions. I’ve found that journaling about my emotional response to a book helps cement the information in my brain. If you feel strongly enough, why not mail your thoughts to the author? Most authors love knowing their work sparked a genuine conversation.
3. Read the Same Book Twice
One of the biggest secrets to wisdom is re-reading. When you read a book for the second or third time, you aren’t reading the same book—you are a different person with new experiences, and you will discover insights that were invisible to you the first time.
4. Focus on Application, Not Completion
The goal of reading a non-fiction book shouldn’t be to finish it; it should be to implement one or two things from it into your actual life. If you read a book on mindfulness but never actually meditate, did the book serve its purpose? Try to find one practical application for the knowledge gathered and share that insight with others.
Final Thoughts: Honor the Effort
When we rush through a book, we are inadvertently disrespecting the effort the author put into their work. An author may have spent years, or even a lifetime, distilling their wisdom into 300 pages. To breeze through that in two days just to add a tally mark to a spreadsheet is a disservice to the art of writing.
So, let’s stop trying to be robots. Let’s stop the “book-a-week” guilt. Whether you read one book a year or twelve, what matters is how those pages changed you.
Put down the stopwatch, pour yourself another cup of tea, and settle in. There is no race. There is only the joy of discovery. Happy (slow) reading!