Akrasia — Why you are wasting your time reading articles like this and what you should do instead.

I’m going to be a bit bold and say the following:

Most non-fiction books could be written as articles, and most non-fiction articles should not be written to begin with.

I have spent quite a bit of time reading over the last ten years ever since I realized that it was something I was actually capable of doing. Having spent my first twenty years of life without it, once I was convinced of its value, I felt as if I had a lot of catching up to do, and rightfully so.

At this point in time, I would estimate that my time has been split quite evenly between books and reading stuff online. And something that has struck me over the years is that most of what I’ve read in books, especially modern books, could be summarized in a short-form article.

Some examples of where a good article seemingly would have been sufficient are:

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach — An elaborate way of repeating that acceptance as an approach to what life throws at you is wise.

Deep Work by Cal Newport — A long rant about how you should take distraction-free time and focus on one thing at a time.

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell — This is a long-winded way of saying that not all things that seem like a drawback actually are.

Atomic Habits by James Clear — A rather thick book telling you that any new habits should be small, simple, obvious, and satisfying for them to stick.

Essentialism by Greg Mckeown — A book that tells you to focus on just a few things rather than a lot of things.

I could go on, but I want to point out is that in no way to say that these books are trash, not at all, I am a big fan of all of them. And that is the very reason that I took these as examples. They are all very popular books that I have read and that I do not for a second regret reading!

Because even if I feel like I can summarize the gist of them in one line here, and that I honestly believe a talented article writer could summarize most of the points laid out well in a few-page-long article. I would argue that reading this article would not be as valuable, not at all!

This might sound counter-intuitive, but hear me out.

I think that one really valuable thing that books like these do well is that they hammer stuff into you, over and over again. And while that might not seem like the best use of one’s time, I would say that it is. It is a good use of time for the simple fact that we are really forgetful by our nature, at least when it comes to the types of facts and concepts books like these are trying to teach us. So taking the time to read one of these books, really allows for the idea to sink in.

They also come with the added benefit of being in the form of a book, and not online! Reading a book is sort of like meditation in that it teaches you how to focus for prolonged periods of time. In contrast to an article, a book takes a good few hours to read. And in that time, you will be faced with your ADD brain telling you to do a bunch of other stuff, that you could have spent this time reading 20+ articles and learned 20x as much. At least that is the case for me, and when this happens, you will have to bring back your attention, over and over again to what the book is saying.

That being said, there are also 100s of shit books, that are written by less talented writers than these, and these, if they are bringing anything new to the table to begin with, would likely have been better as articles.

Now for the articles themselves, here I will be more ruthless, and I do acknowledge that this is a bit paradoxical coming from a person who enjoys writing online articles and not books.

I think that I, and therefore, most other people doing the same thing, would both learn a lot more, and save a lot more time if they had just picked up a few good books on the subject they were reading about instead of reading articles.

The thing with books as a format that many seem to forget today, in contrast to articles online is that they have to pass a higher bar. Apart from what I just wrote out above, three other key factors I want to point out are the following:

1. All books have to be judged as being valuable by people who earn a living out of publishing books. Out-competing other books made by other professionals is not something you do just by luck and catchy titles, it takes hard work, money, and time.
2. All books have to be worth the effort of the person who writes them. Writing a book is not something you do over your evening tea, and therefore, when a person sits and tears their heart out over something, it is likely to be better.
3. There are plenty of ways to hack your articles to make them seem better. A bit of knowledge about SEO, a catchy title, a few friends or even better a network that instantly searches for and reads and likes/claps your article, and so on. This is not the same for books. While there are of course ways to game your way onto best-seller lists, it is often much more hard work involved and therefore provides proof of value in and of itself if done.

And yes, there are likely a lot more than these, but these are the three that came to my mind right now — Remember, this is just an article and not a book, had it been one, you would have gotten a more extensive list.

So now, stop reading stupid stuff like this on medium or substack, and go read a good book!

Before wrapping up on the topic of books, I also do want to point out that more often than not, I also find that older books are more worthwhile reading than newer books. This is quite likely because they have passed the test of time. So books like Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Tao Te Ching, The Dhammapada, The Bhagavad Gita, and even The Bible are all treasures in and of themselves. Reading any one of these books 10 times is likely a way smarter investment of your time than reading 10 new books.

And finally, also I want to be honest and say that some of the articles I have read have given me bits and pieces of really good advice and thought-provoking ideas. This is especially true for stuff on Tim Urbans Waitbutwhy and Maria Popovas The Marginalian, so if you still want to read articles, read these instead of my stuff, you will not regret it for a second.