Every Friday, we’re answering your questions about business, startups, customer success and more.
Happy Friday!
This week’s question comes from Tag Goulet, who asks:
There’s an incredible amount of information and insight out there for anyone looking to grow a business, from blogs and books to recorded talks, interviews and podcasts. The sheer quantity of content is staggering, and to a busy person, it can be overwhelming.
But that’s not an excuse. One painful lesson I’ve been taught over the years is that if you don’t make time to learn, you’re robbing yourself and your business.
I have three tips that work for me:
- Make it easy on yourself by putting your favorite blogs into an RSS reader (Newsblur is my tool of choice, though there are many good ones) that you can scan once or twice a day for new posts. This makes it easy to stay on top of what’s going on.
- Re-prioritize. I don’t mean the usual advice of prioritizing reading over TV or Facebook or other distractions (although this is really, really important and the first place I’d start), but on a deeper level, I mean that maybe reading is more important than another 30 minutes of work, meetings, calls, blog writing, business development, whatever. I think it is.
- Start small. You don’t have to throw 50 blogs into your RSS reader and try to read them all. If you’re starting at zero, pick a few blogs and make it your goal to read one post per day. Then build up from there.
What am I missing here? How do you make time to read? Let me know in the comments!
