Wednesday, June 11, 2008

How Many Pages Per Mile Can You Read?

I can read about 20.

What the heck am I talking about? My new love: reading while walking! I have a hard time focusing on one book for more than a few pages while sitting still and reading before the old ADHD kicks in. It doesn't matter how interested I am in the book, fiction or non-fiction, I always need to stop reading to act upon some thought or overwhelming impulse that I've just had.

So today I thought I'd try something new. I had just gotten Your Brain: The Missing Manual (see my previous post). I was about to go for my daily walk, but I really really wanted to read this. So I thought why not, I'll bring the book with me and read it while walking. Worst case, that proves to be difficult and I just carry the book with me on my walk.

What a pleasant surprise! I found that I not only walked my usual, very brisk pace, but that I actually managed to read 64 pages; 3 whole chapters! Reading 64 pages at home would be nearly impossible for me. I actually retained all of the material and had a very enjoyable walk. When I got back home, I decided to do a useless calculation:

First I used Google Maps to map out my route. I had guesstimated it was 3 miles long, but it turns out it's 3.2 miles. Feel free to stalk me on my daily walks if you know where this is.

View Larger Map

64 pages over 3.2 mi = 64/3.2 = 20 pages per mile. A completely useless statistic, but fun to know.

So why this blog post? I feel like this is a mind hack. I typically can't focus enough to read a lot at once, so this seems like a great way to get me reading on the daily walks that I enjoy so much. I'd love to hear results from anyone else who has tried this or would like to! Apparently, there's even a wikiHow article on the subject.

1 comment:

Iman said...

WikiHow says: "You will walk slower when you read and walk, no matter how experienced you are."

Not only are you not experienced, but you also said that you walked at your usual pace. So, according to this irrefutable data I have just cited -- YOU ARE WRONG, SIR, OR A LIAR.

. . . Just saying. Otherwise, nice post. ;-)