How can you find time to read? It takes time and energy to read. One way to help make that happen is to carve an hour out of your day just for yourself. In an interview he gave for his authorized biography The Snowball, Buffett told the story: 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. He did it early in the morning, working on these construction projects and real estate deals. 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 hour. On one hand you 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 your attention. On the other hand, you can dedicate the time to improving yourself. In the short term, you’re better off with the dopamine laced rush of email and twitter while multitasking. In the long term, the investment in learning something new and improving yourself goes further.
— The Buffett Formula — How To Get Smarter (Shane Parrish), Loc. 43–53
Well yeah!
Comment on Sep 30, 2026: I’ve been doing that for a long time, before my family started, and it works. Unfortunately, it’s so much complicated with having little kids around! But apart from that, I would highly recommend. Get yourself an hour a day! It pays off!