After reading an inspirational blog post, I increased my retirement reading goal from 500 to 1000 books. How long do you think it will take me to read 1000 books?

Welcome to the 61st edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a decluttering challenge for the week. In addition to my reading goal, this week’s edition looks at the best plant-based milk for the environment, the world’s largest solar power site, why water is a precious resource, and decluttering books and magazines.  

On my mind this week: How long will it take me to read 1000 books?

In early 2020, shortly before the pandemic began, Neil Pasricha spoke at our global employee forum at work. If you’re not familiar with Neil, he’s the author of The Book of Awesome and several other books in the “Awesome” series. His story is inspirational. At a low point in his life, Neil started a blog called 1000 Awesome Things and committed to posting one awesome thing for 1000 straight weekdays.  

The premise of the blog and the books that followed is simple, but they have a powerful message of the importance of gratitude for life’s simple pleasures even in the worst of times.

After hearing Neil speak, I read a couple of his books and subscribed to his email newsletter. Every morning, an “awesome” email pops into my inbox. Usually it’s something short and sweet, but periodically Neil also shares book reviews and other thoughts.

A few weeks ago, Neil shared his progress on his goal of giving 1000 speeches, and suggested we ask ourselves, “What can I do 1000 of?” It’s an interesting question.

What can I do 1000 of?

So, after reading Neil’s The Power of 1000 blog post, I crossed “Read 500 books” off my retirement Curious List and replaced it with “Read 1000 books”. I agree with Neil that doing 1000 of anything is a challenging, but achievable, goal.

How long will it take me to read 1,000 books? After years of hardly reading at all, I’ve been reading more in recent years. In 2022, I read 25 books. I increased that to 37 in 2023. So, if I could read 37 books in between working, studying, blogging, and everything else I have on the go, I estimate I should be able to double that after I retire. At a pace of 75 books a year, it will take me a little over 13 years to read 1,000 books.

Stay tuned! I’ll report back on my progress in future blog posts. Perhaps I’ll share a monthly or quarterly book review post.

Now it’s your turn. What will you do 1000 of? Read Neil’s The Power of 1000 blog post and then drop me a comment below and let me know.

Let’s keep in touch! Join my mailing list and I’ll email you when I add a new post.

Three highlights of the week

One of the habits I started after hearing Neil Pasricha speak in 2020 was daily journalling. Keeping the trend of celebrating the big milestones and simple pleasures in life going, here are three highlights of the week gone by:

• Last weekend, we went to see a matinee performance of Jersey Boys with my high school friends and their partners. It was excellent, and I was surprised how much of Frankie Valli’s music I recognized. After the show, we went out for dinner.
• Signs of spring are everywhere. The ducks are back on our local pond—and they even visited our back garden—and we had lovely goldfinches at our bird feeder this week.
• On Friday, I had a great update meeting with my two co-authors on our upcoming book project. Things are taking shape. Stay tuned for more information!

Three things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

Oat milk the best choice for the environment

Plant-based milks are a better choice for the environment than dairy for many reasons. They produce less greenhouse gas, have a lower land and water footprint, reduce the rate of deforestation, and their production consumes less energy.

But is there a clear winner between the various plant milk options? Yes! Oat milk requires 80% less land and much less water than other plant-based milks. And growing oats involves fewer fertilizers and pesticides. Oat milk also tastes better in tea than other options.

(Source: Biofriendly Planet)  

World’s largest solar power site

California just flipped the switch on the world’s largest solar power and battery storage site. In addition to providing a clean source of power for the state with the largest electricity demand, the 4,600-acre Edwards Sanborn project stores excess solar energy in large batteries, releasing power back to the grid when needed, resulting in a more consistent supply.

(Source: Happy Eco News)

How much of the world’s water is available?

Water is a precious resource. Of all the water in the world, less than 1% is available for drinking, agriculture, industry, and nature. Around the world, over 1 billion people don’t have access to safe drinking water. Yet, Americans (and Canadians, too) use water at twice the global average.

(Source: National Geographic, AWorld app)

This week’s decluttering challenge – Books & magazines

In 2024, I’ve been revisiting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge I completed in 2021. Appropriately, given the theme of today’s post, this week’s challenge was decluttering books and magazines. I’m happy to report I decluttered 9 items. You can find the details, along with my tips and learnings, in this week’s decluttering post.

If you’d like to join the challenge, visit this post to download your free checklists and jump right in with this week’s task.

I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas. And don’t forget to tell me what you’ll do 1,000 of!