You should get a Kindle

Hey friends,

If there’s one thing I’d recommend you buy/request as a gift over the Christmas period, it’s an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. This is not a sponsored email (I wish) but does include some affiliate links as usual 😉

Here are some reasons why you should get a Kindle.

(1) It massively reduces the friction for reading.

It’s pretty uncontroversial to say that reading a book is probably better for us in the long term than scrolling through Instagram. The problem is that scrolling through Instagram when we’re commuting or in bed is just too easy. Having a Kindle on our bedside or in our bags makes it much easier to ditch the scrolling and to become engrossed in a good book.

The Kindle mobile app is also pretty good, so on occasions when I don’t have my Kindle with me, I just carry on reading on my phone (which syncs seamlessly with the actual Kindle so I don’t lose my place).

(2) It massively reduces the friction to getting a new book.

When I hear a book recommendation on a podcast or blog, I instantly hop onto Amazon on my phone and buy the book on Kindle and can start reading it within a few seconds. I don’t even look at the price, (a) given how cheap books are, and (b) the ridiculously high ROI (return on investment) that’s possible with them.

For example, Tim Ferris’ 4-hour work week was a big contributor to my entrepreneurial endeavours, and allowed me to build a company in medical school that’s been doing 6 figures in revenue for 5 years. Not bad for a book that costs £7 (although admittedly, I think I torrented a PDF of it in secondary school, sorry Tim).

(3) Kindle highlighting is incredible

You can use the touchscreen to highlight whatever you want, and then you can browse through your highlights on any device to remind yourself of your favourite quotes/lessons.

You can even sign up to an app like Readwise that sends you a daily email with 5 of your Kindle highlights – this has been one of my favourite discoveries of 2018. In fact, while reading my daily Readwise email on the toilet a few minutes ago, I came across a passage from Make it Stick that’s going to be super helpful for my upcoming video about how to learn new content for the first time 😁

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Sure, a Kindle doesn’t quite give you that romanticised experience of ‘reading a physical book’ that everyone loves to go on about, but I think that the benefits far, far outweigh the lack of that ‘hardback book aroma’ and ‘the feeling of a book in my hand’.

So yeah, overall, my Kindle has been one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. The books I’ve read on it have added an enormous amount of value to my life, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Have a great week!

Ali

Stuff I’ve been enjoying this week

1. Fiction – One Day in December (Josie Silver) – I started reading this last Monday and absolutely tore through it. It’s a really lovely story of a guy and a girl who catch a glimpse of each other on a bus in London one day in December. Probably the best romance book I’ve ever read (although admittedly I’m not an expert on the genre). And it’s only 99p on Kindle :O

2. Productivity Article – How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You – A ridiculously detailed article about optimising your phone habits written in a very concise, prescriptive style. I discovered this through Tim Ferris’ weekly newsletter which is definitely worth subscribing to too 🙂

3.  Blog Post – How to Enjoy Life (Raptitude) – Really good read about taking pleasure in the everyday things in life. I love the content on the Raptitude blog generally – it’s sort of the direction I want to head with my own.