Bill Gates schedules a week each year to read lots of new books and think…
One of the most important decisions we all make every day is how to spend our time.
Highly successful leaders often allocate their time in unconventional ways.
Take former Microsoft CEO and world’s 3rd richest person Bill Gates. Each year he announces his annual suggestion for a summer reading list, consisting of the books he has read in the past year that he recommends because he found them gripping and which made him think in new ways.
Plenty of leaders read books, obviously, but not many do it like Gates. He devours them. As CEO, he scheduled a week each year where he would be entirely undisturbed so he could just read and think.
Does this remind you of any other leaders?
How about Warren Buffett?
Buffett said: “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So, I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions, than most people in business.”
Buffett spends 80% of his time reading. When asked for his advice on how to get so smart he held up a book and said: “Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge builds, like compound interest.”
Such time use is decidedly weird, as Buffett observed.
Researchers at the Harvard Business School found that CEOs they studied spent 15% of their work time on the phone, reading or replying to written correspondence. So, reading must be about 5%.
The same research found that CEOs spend 61% in face-to-face interactions (on average), and the remaining 24% on electronic communications. Meaning, none of them will ever be another Buffett.
It’s interesting that leaders like Gates and Buffet allocate so much time to reading and education, which in turn has helped them improve their organisations, and their teams.
Reading for me is important too, over the last 2 years I’ve being reading a business-related book each week, which has helped our office technology solutions business grow and team improve.
Not only this, I’ve also committed to shoot a weekly business book video review, which is released across most social media channels and onto our website, so others can share in the knowledge.
I’m not saying it’s going to turn me into the next Buffett or Bill Gates (although it’d be nice), but I’m sure it’s helping our business grow and our team to provide better products and service to customers.
…do you allocate part of your time for continuous improvement?
