Finding the time to read is easier than we think.

In an interview he gave for his authorized biography The Snowball, Buffett told this story about Charlie Munger, his longtime business partner at Berkshire Hathaway:

“Charlie, as a very young lawyer, was probably getting $20 an hour. He thought to himself, ‘Who’s my most valuable client?’ And he decided it was himself. So he decided to sell himself an hour each day. Everybody should do this, be the client, and then work for other people, too, and sell yourself an hour a day.”

It’s important to think about the opportunity cost of this self-selling hour. On one hand, we can check Twitter, read some online news, and reply to a few emails while pretending to finish the memo that is supposed to be the focus of our attention. On the other hand, we can dedic...