I extended my reading fasting resolution for another month upon my coach’s recommendation since she believes I did not commit 100% in January by reading articles and listening to few podcasts here and there. That’s why I chose in February to push myself by applying it much more strictly and this is how:

• Not reading Seth Godin‘s daily posts that have been a source of delight and motivation during my working day since 2009. This month, instead, I just enjoy reading the email titles of his posts and imagining what they could be about. I’m playing with idea of acting as if the titles are writing prompts for me where I create my own post with the same title of his.
• Not opening any facebook or twitter article links (very challenging believe me).
• Minimun checking of my personal email because the inbox is full of content and awesome articles as I subscribed to many over the years. Turning off notifications of course helped so much.
• Not shopping for books on amazon nor checking the deal of the day on Kindle and Audible.

I miss reading some of my favorite newsletters like The daily stoic by Ryan Holiday, 5-bullet friday by Tim Ferris and Brainpickings newsletter by Maria Popova. Funny thing I noticed, however, is that I thought I would be deprived of content and new inspiration during this period; the truth is I was not, because I did not quit social media. I was proud to discover I really refined my timeline over the years and the algorithms of Facebook are working to show me posts from my top influencers who in return are doing what I love and follow them for by sharing the most beautiful quotes and pieces of wisdom to which I have very easy access during my usual social media daily meals.

I also noticed that sticking to my morning routine of journaling and spiritual practice is what truly keeps me sharp and self motivated. It turned out my discipline is my secret.

I still have 2 weeks of no books consumption to go and I will optimize my reading fasting even futher as below:

• Limit my social media consumption using some useful tools like appblock which limits my time on each app I select and blocks it when I reach the maximim time allowed.
• Control my semi-daily netflix guilty pleasure by enjoying the 20 minutes I give my brains to shut down and be done with it by not clicking the next episode.
• Be more intentional about the books I will read this year. I would love to read books about stoicism, habits and happiness, customer experience (job related), personal finance, parenting, side business and entrepreneurship. Of course I’ll leave room to immedialty add to my library any new book by my favorite authors like Seth Godin, Gretchen Rubin or Brené Brown.
• Focus on studing PMP which is another goal I am trying to achieve in the first quarter of this year.

Interested to have more observations on the impact of this temporary project on my life. It has been very exciting time and I now believe it was exactly what I needed; the self-permission to just hit pause.