I am a believer in setting goals in every aspect of life. My 2019 educational goal is a bit ambitious but achievable. I didn’t realize it at the time but this goal is going to change my focus a bit. In order to complete this goal successfully, I am going to have to spend a lot of my time away from work consuming educational media instead of binging on Netflix or re-watching all of Game of Thrones.
Read 100 Books
I should be able to do this fairly easily as long as I don’t get distracted. I go through phases where I devour everything I get my hands on. Occasionally, though, I get distracted by a book because I either find it boring or it just isn’t exactly what I want or need at the time and I drag my feet. Right now I am struggling with a book that everyone seems to love but I can’t seem to get into which is Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life: An Antidote to Chaos. I can’t seem to get into it so I will probably have to put it down and move on. Maybe I can pick it up again later. Deep Work was another book like that for me. I still haven’t read it. The guidelines for this goal are that I can re-read books I have read before and enjoyed and I can read any genre. I am not restricted to non-fiction.
This is good for me because I have a list of favorites that I re-read every year. It would definitely hinder me if I didn’t count them. Here is my re-read list for 2019. Every year the books change as I grow out of some and add new favorites.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- Set for Life by Scott Trench
- The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
- The Richest Man in Babylon by George S Clason
- The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- Be Obsessed or Be Average by Grant Cardone
- The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
- The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E Gerber
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek
- The Lies of Loche Lamora by Scott Lynch
- Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
- Your First 100 by Meera Kothand
- Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
So, 18% of my quota will be re-reads but that is okay. Perhaps this is the year I take better notes so I can just read the notes in a few minutes instead of spending hours in the book. Notice that only three are fiction. I will likely read a lot of fiction but only in very strict circumstances do I read fiction over and over. The Wheel of Time was an exception. So are the Stormlight Archives. Oh well, those massive tomes won’t be on my list this year. This breaks down to 2 books per week and since I have spent over a week trying to struggle through 12 Rules, I need to get moving.
Complete 25 Online Courses
Some of these will be brief and some will not. There are several areas I am going to focus on this year. Fulfillment by Amazon, Python, Machine Learning, and advanced Mathematics are all high on my list. I already have several of these purchased but I still need to schedule them. The length of the courses will be from 3 hours (FBA, Python) to 40 hours (Machine Learning). I would also like to brush up on Spanish and pick up another programming language but there might not be time for all of that. Still, 25 is a lot. It means I have to complete one course every two weeks. So far, I haven’t scheduled any time and that is something I really need to start doing. Part of me is insisting on getting it right. I don’t want to waste a slot on something I am not 100% certain on.
Listen to 250 Podcasts
This one might seem hard on the surface but I think it will be the easiest of the three. I can listen while exercising and driving so the time is there for sure. I am focusing on The Bigger Pockets Podcast, The Indie Hackers Podcast, and the Smart Passive Income Podcast. Those three alone will keep me busy for at least two years. And, they come out with new content every week.
This breaks down to about 5 per week and that means one per day. I can probably do 500 just this year but we will see. At some point, I may have to switch to audiobooks in order to hit my 100 books but time will tell.
Conclusion
I would love to hear from anyone that is actively planning their educational goals. Everyone needs an accountability buddy and one more won’t hurt. My goals are a bit ambitious I think but I will only know when the time gets closer. If they aren’t ambitious enough, I will raise the counts but I won’t lower them. I will just have to focus a bit more each week to get on track.