I’ve was extremely busy in 2015. I was working full-time while trying to start a business, I was traveling a lot, I was (and still am) planning a wedding and I was trying to get my life in order by giving myself a challenge to minimize my belongings more than I already did. It seems as if my time had been tied, and I didn’t have enough of it, but I still managed to give into my favorite hobby — reading.
I read 50 books in the year 2015. Despite all my responsibilities and adventures, I managed to give myself the luxury of reading around 15,000 pages. How did I do it all? By being a minimalist of course! Minimalism allows you to make room for the things you love most, the things that will give you pleasure, and the things that will benefit you or be useful to you. One of the things that I enjoy doing is reading. Now, it could be for pleasure, for research, for bettering myself or to keep current in my industries of work. I love reading and taking notes and learning from the words.
When I started getting rid of the things that didn’t matter in my life, time opened up and allowed me to fill it with things that did. ( tweet this ) Instead of going out, I stayed in and read. Instead of wasting time playing games, I read. Instead of staring out a window to my destination, I read. Instead of wasting my brain cells watching TV, I read. Instead of sleeping, I read. And, the sleepless nights were worth it — to me. Sometimes, I didn’t know when to put a book down!
It felt so awesome to binge read, to get excited about releases and to spend a lot of time at my library. Here is the full list of books that got me through the year.
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich – Ramit Sethi
- The new frugality : how to consume less, save more, and live better – Chris Farrell
- Slim by design : mindless eating solutions for everyday life – Brian Wansink
- Escape from cubicle nation : from corporate prisoner to thriving entrepreneur – Slim, Pamela
- The 4-hour Workweek – Tim Ferriss
- Start : punch fear in the face, escape average, do work that matters – Jon Acuff
- The maze runner – James Dashner
- Better than before : mastering the habits of our everyday lives – Gretchen Rubin
- Eat to live : the amazing nutrient-rich program for fast and sustained weight loss – Joel Fuhrman
- Stuffocation : why we’ve had enough of stuff and need experience more than ever – James Wallman
- The Scorch trials – James Dashner
- Scaling down : living large in a smaller space – Judi Culbertson
- Blue Lily, Lily Blue – Maggie Stiefvater
- 80/10/10 diet – Dr. Graham
- I hate myselfie – Shane Dawson
- The 9-to-5 cure : work on your own terms and reinvent your life – Kristin Cardinale
- The Death Cure – James Dashner
- The Dirt-Cheap Green Thumb – Rhonda Massingham Hart
- Clutter Free – Kathi Lipp
- Organized Simplicity – Tsh Oxenreider
- I, Justine – Justine Ezarik
- Creative, inc. : the ultimate guide to running a successful freelance business – Meg Mateo Ilasco
- The life-changing magic of tidying up : the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing – Marie KondÅ
- Lois Lane : fallout – Gwenda Bond
- The art of work : a proven path to discovering what you were meant to do – Jeff Goins
- The summer I turned pretty – Jenny Han
- The Trump card : playing to win in work and life – Ivanka Trump
- The Zero-Waste Lifestyle – Amy Korst
- Raw Food Weight Loss And Vitality – Andrew Perlot
- Minimalism : live a meaningful life – Joshua Fields Millburn
- It’s not summer without you – Jenny Han
- We’ll always have summer – Jenny Han
- Everything that remains : a memoir by The Minimalists – Joshua Fields Millburn
- The raw cure : healing beyond medicine : how self empowerment, a raw vegan diet, and change of lifestyle can free us from sickness and disease – Jesse J Jacoby
- The $100 Startup – Chris Guillebeau
- I feel like going on : life, game, and glory – Ray Lewis
- Your Internet Cash Machine – Joe Vitale
- Rich dad’s guide to investing : what the rich invest in that the poor and middle class do not! – Robert Kiyosaki
- Same difference – Siobhan Vivian
- Two*way street – Lauren Barnholdt
- Rich dad, poor dad : what the rich teach their kids about money– that the poor and middle class do not! – Robert Kiyosaki
- Big magic : creative living beyond fear – Elizabeth Gilbert
- Eat, pray, love : one woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia – Elizabeth Gilbert
- Inbound Marketing – Brian Halligan
- Leap : leaving a job with no Plan B to find the career and life you really want – Tess Vigeland
- Committed – Elizabeth Gilbert
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School – Jeff Kinney
- The year of living Danishly : uncovering the secrets of the world’s happiest country – Helen Russell
- Blog, Inc. : blogging for passion, profit, and to create community – Joy Deangdeelert Cho
- My so-called freelance life : how to survive and thrive as a creative professional for hire – Michelle Goodman
Want Some Data?
Here are some charts that show some data on the books. The first one shows how many books I read each month. You can see that I had months where I binge-read up to 8 books and there were some months where I had a dry spell because of the binges. Sometimes, I would binge read novels over a two day period and cram a couple novels into one week. I started getting headaches after that!
Jan: 4 Feb: 1 Mar: 4 Apr: 8 Ma: 4 Jun: 6 Jul: 2 Aug: 4 Sept: 2 Oct: 1 Nov: 7 Dec: 7
The second chart shows the percentage between physical, digital and audio books. I did count the one audiobook I “read” this year.
I don’t think I’ll ever take a long break from reading, but I hope to open up some time to other great things in 2016.
What did you read last year?
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