Most books are highly overrated. They usually take some useful ideas, usually what author perceived was useful to them, and add things to them to make it sound useful to their target readers, which may or may not make sense... enough to fill the length of a book.
Are some books life changing? Sure! But some can change how you think to your detriment because the information in books is not optimized to your life situation.
So, overall, if you're not reading any, you're not missing out.
The problem is you won't believe it until you actually do go ahead and read them. How the books are marketed and sold, it makes you feel that you are missing some vital information that will change your life... you purchase it and think one day you'll read it and conquer all obstacles (or realize that "the obstacle is the way" by reading Ryan Holiday). Well, nothing like that will happen. But again, to actually know that for yourself, you'll have to read them.
So, I can explain how I did it. If you are obsessive-compulsive like me and are single without kids and without much of a social life like I was, you may be able to do it too. This is what I did:
- Create a goal in Goodreads and obsessively track progress (which page are you in) every time you read a part of the book
- If some book is easily distracting, find the audiobook... and listen to the audiobook at high speed while reading the physical or digital copy. If audiobook version doesn't exist, find a drm-free digital copy (Library Genesis is your friend) and let Google Books or PocketBook read it at high speed for you
- Buy good quality noise-cancelling headphones and listen to books all the time... commuting, driving, working out, cleaning, cooking, whenever you can do it.
- If you get stuck with a book, start another one. Keep doing that. Don't set goals to read specific books. That will halt you. Just move on to the next one. You can always come back and continue.
- It's OK to read 3 whole books cover to cover on a Sunday.
- It's OK to read at night when you can't sleep. It might help you sleep. I managed to fall sleep in a micro bus in Thailand when I was reading 48 Laws of Power (yes, it is that boring).
Again, it's not worth it... but if you feel like you're missing something, do it and find out for yourself.