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I Tried “Reading Like a CEO” for 30 Days — Here’s What Actually Worked

James Anderson · 11 min read · Mar 16, 2026
I Tried “Reading Like a CEO” for 30 Days — Here’s What Actually Worked

I Tried “Reading Like a CEO” for 30 Days — Here’s What Actually Worked

I kept seeing CEOs brag about reading 50+ books a year and thought, sure, Jan. Between work, doomscrolling, and pretending to have a social life, I was barely finishing one book a month. So I ran a 30‑day experiment: I copied the reading habits of ultra‑busy founders and execs—and hacked them for normal humans who don’t have assistants or private jets.

What surprised me wasn’t just that I read more. The kind of reading I did changed how I processed ideas, remembered what I read, and even how I scrolled my phone. Some “productivity hacks” crashed and burned. Some were ridiculously effective. Here’s the honest breakdown.

How I Built a “CEO Reading Stack” Without Losing My Mind

When I started this experiment, I pulled ideas from people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos—then tried to actually live with those habits for a month.

I recently discovered that Gates reads about 50 books a year and writes insanely detailed notes on many of them. Buffett famously once said he spends “five or six hours a day” reading newspapers, reports, and books. That sounded heroic… and wildly unrealistic for me. So I built a lighter “stack.”

Here’s what my setup looked like in practice:

  • One “anchor” physical book. For me, it was The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. It’s dense, so I treated it like a slow, serious relationship.
  • One audiobook “walk book.” I tested Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I only listened while walking, commuting, or doing dishes. No couch listening allowed, or I’d cheat and zone out.
  • One digital “spare minutes” book. On my phone’s Kindle app I kept something lighter but still smart—Cal Newport’s Deep Work. This was for lines at the grocery store or waiting rooms instead of scrolling social.

In my experience, having three different formats for three different contexts did two crucial things:

  1. I stopped “waiting for the perfect reading moment.” If I had 7 minutes, I had a book for that.
  2. I didn’t get bored. When the heavy nonfiction felt like chewing cardboard, I jumped to the sci‑fi audiobook or the digital “thinking” book.

What didn’t work? Trying to read multiple heavy non‑fiction books at once. When I tested that for a week, my attention shredded. I kept mixing up arguments and authors and remembered almost nothing.

The 25-Page Rule That Quietly Beat My TikTok Brain

On day three, I almost quit. I’d set a goal of reading for 45 minutes a day, and it felt like going from couch potato to marathon runner in a weekend. My brain kept reaching for my phone like a toddler reaching for candy.

So I stole a rule from Ryan Holiday (the author of The Obstacle Is the Way), who often talks about his routine of reading 100+ pages a day—but I cut it down to something survivable: the 25-page rule.

Here’s how it worked for me:

  • Every day, I just had to read 25 pages total across any books.
  • They could be 10 pages physical, 10 digital, 5 audio (where I counted ~2 minutes = 1 “page”).
  • If I felt like reading more, cool. But 25 was “done.”

The strange thing is, once I mentally “earned” my 25 pages, I kept going more often than not. The pressure disappeared.

I also picked up a trick from behavioral science research: make the first step stupidly easy. A classic 2002 study on willpower by Roy Baumeister’s team and later habit research by BJ Fogg at Stanford both show that tiny, repeatable actions stick better than heroic one-off efforts. So I reduced my starting action to this:

> “Open the book and read one paragraph.”

That’s it. Once I started, most of the resistance dissolved. I didn’t win every day, but over 30 days I clocked:

  • 6 books finished (2 audio, 3 physical, 1 digital)
  • About 1,200+ pages read
  • One slightly smug feeling, I won’t lie

Downsides? Some days I “page‑chased,” speeding through easy stuff just to hit my 25. I noticed I remembered less from those sprint days. More on that in a bit.

The Note-Taking Trick That Turned My Books Into a Personal “Idea Bank”

Before this experiment, I’d underline sentences like a maniac… and then never look at them again. So books felt inspiring in the moment but kind of disposable long-term.

Midway through the month, I tested a new method based loosely on the “zettelkasten” system that academics and researchers use—a fancy German term for a slip-box of interconnected notes. I simplified it for my lazy, messy brain.

Here’s how I did it:

  1. Highlight sparingly. I forced myself to ask: “Would future me actually care about this?” If not, no highlight.
  2. End-of-session brain dump. After each reading chunk (even 10 minutes), I scribbled 3–5 bullet points in a notebook or notes app:
  • One big idea in my own words
  • One quote that hit hard
  • One way it connects to something in my life or work
  1. Weekly “idea review.” Sunday nights, 15 minutes: I scanned that week’s notes and tagged them super loosely:
  • `health`, `work`, `money`, `relationships`, `creativity`, etc.

When I tested this for the first week, it felt like extra homework. By week two, something clicked: I started remembering ideas without trying. I could quote passages from books I’d read days earlier, which never happens to me.

Researchers actually back this up. A 2014 study on learning strategies published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest found that “elaborative interrogation” and self-explanation—in other words, forcing yourself to explain ideas in your own words—dramatically improve recall compared to passive highlighting or re-reading.

The catch? This method slows you down. I read fewer pages per hour when I paused for notes. But honestly, 10 pages deeply remembered beat 40 pages instantly forgotten.

The Surprising Emotional Side Effect I Didn’t Expect

Something I wasn’t prepared for: reading more non‑fiction and good fiction changed how I felt, not just what I knew.

I recently finished The Midnight Library by Matt Haig as part of this experiment, and there’s a line about all the lives we could have lived. That one scene sat in my head for days. It quietly lowered that background hum of “I should be doing more with my life” that social media loves to amplify.

At the same time, The Body Keeps the Score hit me like a truck. It explores trauma, memory, and the nervous system in a way that’s both scientific and deeply human. Bessel van der Kolk walks through things like EMDR, neurofeedback, and the role of the amygdala in trauma response. I’d read blog posts on trauma before, but this book made me feel how complex and physical it really is.

Pros of this emotional side:

  • I scrolled less. When a book had its hooks in me, TikTok felt weirdly flat.
  • My anxiety dipped on days when I read before bed instead of checking my phone.
  • Conversations with friends got deeper—I had better questions, not just takes.

Cons:

  • Some material was heavy enough that it messed with my sleep.
  • I occasionally used “I’m reading” as a socially acceptable way to avoid dealing with hard stuff—like emails, tough conversations, or decisions I was procrastinating on.

There’s actual research on this too. Bibliotherapy—using books in a structured way to help with mental health—has evidence behind it. The UK’s NHS even supports “Books on Prescription” programs, where curated reading lists are part of treating mild to moderate depression and anxiety.

My unscientific conclusion: reading more doesn’t automatically make life better, but reading more on purpose absolutely gave me more emotional tools and language.

Where the CEO Reading Fantasy Totally Broke

Not everything worked. Some of the “power reader” habits looked sexy on paper and flopped in real life.

1. Waking up an hour earlier just to read

I tried this for five days. I set my alarm one hour earlier and promised I’d read instead of scrolling. Reality:

  • Day 1–2: Felt virtuous, posted a smug coffee-and-book photo to my story.
  • Day 3: Zombie mode. I re-read the same paragraph five times.
  • Day 4: Hit snooze three times. No reading.
  • Day 5: Gave up and drank double the coffee.

I eventually accepted what sleep researchers from places like Harvard Medical School keep saying: most adults already don’t sleep enough, and willpower disintegrates when you’re exhausted. For me, stealing time from sleep to read just tanked both my mood and my comprehension.

What worked better: shifting 15–20 minutes from late-night scrolling to reading. My rule became: “Phone goes on the other side of the room, book on the pillow.” Modest, but sustainable.

2. Speed-reading “like a pro”

I also tested a speed-reading app that claimed to double reading speed by flashing one word at a time in the same place. It did make me go faster… but my retention cratered. I finished chapters and couldn’t tell you what they were about.

Meta-analyses from researchers like Elizabeth Schotter and colleagues have found that true speed-reading usually means you’re just skimming and sacrificing comprehension. My experience backed that up hard.

The only “speed” tweak that helped was:

  • Using my finger as a physical guide under the line.
  • Setting a smooth pace, but slowing down anytime something felt important.

Not flashy. No viral hack. Just deliberate, attentive reading.

How to Steal the Best Parts of This Experiment for Your Own Life

You don’t need a 30‑day challenge or a CEO schedule to use what actually worked. If I had to boil this whole experiment down into a few quietly powerful moves, it’d be these:

  • Match format to moment.

Physical book for deep evenings, audiobook for movement, ebook for random downtime. One book per context.

  • Shrink the daily target until it feels almost silly.

Ten pages. One paragraph. Two minutes. Whatever doesn’t trigger internal rebellion.

  • Translate, don’t just highlight.

After each session, write a few rough sentences about what you just read, in your own messy words. You’re not writing an essay; you’re building a conversation between you and the book.

  • Let some days be light.

On chaotic days, I’d reread a favorite poem or a single essay instead of pushing through a dense chapter. That kept the habit alive without burning me out.

  • Drop the guilt about “serious” books only.

When I let myself mix in sci‑fi, graphic novels, and essays alongside heavy non‑fiction, my consistency skyrocketed. Reading stopped feeling like homework and started feeling like oxygen.

Are you going to read like Warren Buffett after this? Probably not. I’m not either. But after 30 days of tinkering with my own “reading system,” I’ve stopped treating books like a luxury and started treating them like a daily input—like food, or sunlight, or that first cup of coffee that makes you vaguely human.

And the best part? When someone says, “I don’t have time to read,” I can honestly say: “Same. I just read anyway—and way less than the internet gurus say I should.”

Conclusion

Over those 30 days, I didn’t become a different person. I didn’t suddenly wake up at 4:30 a.m., breeze through three books before breakfast, and start a unicorn startup. What did change was quieter and more valuable: the way my attention works, the way ideas stick, and the way I reach for a book instead of a scroll when my brain wants a hit of something.

In my experience, “reading like a CEO” isn’t about volume or flexing a list of titles on LinkedIn. It’s about designing tiny, repeatable habits that make books feel as normal as checking your phone—while actually giving your brain something back.

If you build even a stripped‑down version of that—one anchor book, one light book, one tiny daily target—you might be surprised how fast your reading life stops being an aspiration and starts being just… part of how you move through your day.

And you won’t need a private jet for any of it.

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