A rule for success
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Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Jack Ma, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey – they are all successful in their respective careers, and they have one thing in common – all of them follow the 5-hour rule. This means allotting one hour per weekday for reading and learning (e.g. online courses).
Working Smart
Empact founder Michael Simmons coined the phrase, the five-hour rule, regarding reading and learning. This rule can be traced back to the life of Benjamin Franklin who spent about an hour a day on deliberate learning. He started his day early to read and write, as well as create personal goals and monitor his progress. Simmons created the five-hour rule from this practice – one hour every weekday.
This principle is an effective way toward success because working harder and for a longer period of time is not equivalent to working smarter. When you devote time to reading and learning, you veer away from your current tasks and invest in self-improvement. That’s how you work smart. You can invest in self-improvement by learning some new skills with CFI’s Excel Crash Course!
Reading for Success
You may think that after a hard day’s work, all you want to do is eat and relax in front of the TV. In this fast-paced life, working and taking care of your family already take up most of your time. While spending your free time relaxing is not necessarily a bad thing, reading regularly is a healthy habit if you want to be successful.
According to afive-year study by Thomas Corley involving over 200 self-made millionaires, 86 percent said they read for more than just fun. As if sitting down and reading a book is not enough, 63 percent said they use audiobooks during their morning commute.
Stages of the 5-Hour Rule on Reading
Many successful people who engage in deliberate learning go through three stages:
#1. Read
Most successful business leaders and personalities are voracious readers, not only to expand their knowledge but also to be aware of strategies and tactics of others. If you think devoting one hour per day for reading is too much, go for about 30 minutes instead.
Develop the habit of reading by bringing a book with you wherever you go. This way, you can flip through several pages while waiting for your turn at the bank rather than browsing through your social media accounts. If you prefer audiobooks, you can try listening to one during your morning commute.
#2. Think/Reflect
The 5-hour rule may include time for thinking and reflecting. Some may write notes in their journal, while others zone out and block off the world. This is an opportunity to assess your mistakes and accomplishments. This prepares you for achieving your goals.
In astudy from the University of Texas at Austin, researchers found that mental rest helps boost future learning.
#3. Experiment
Tech giants conduct a lot of experiments and testing to reach where they are today. Inventions were created out of experiments by great minds. Experiments enable you to apply what you’ve learned. When you experiment, you can see what works, what doesn’t, and ask for feedback from peers.
Learning does not stop inside a classroom. It is a never-ending process that will make you productive on a regular basis and help you achieve success over time. Try the 5-hour rule and make reading and learning a habit. Experiment with some of CFI’s free courses to see if online learning works for you!
Additional Resources
Corporate Finance Institute has a variety of courses and resources that can help you learn and advance your career! Check them out below:
FAQs
Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Jack Ma, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey – they are all successful in their respective careers, and they have one thing in common – all of them follow the 5-hour rule. This means allotting one hour per weekday for reading and learning (e.g. online courses).
What is the 5 hour rule Bill Gates? ›
The 5-hour rule is about devoting one hour a day, five days a week, to learning something new. Successful people like Oprah, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk all allegedly follow it.
What is the 5 hour learning rule? ›
The 5 hour rule is almost hilariously simple. It was coined by Michael Simmons, an entrepreneur and journalist. It suggests that no matter how busy successful people are, they will spend at least an hour a day — or 5 hours a work week — learning or practicing.
How many hours did Bill Gates work? ›
Bill Gate's self-reported work schedule would give him 3640 hours per year, meaning he worked about double the hours of a "regular person". Bill Gates in 2018 dollars as of 1999 was worth about $150 billion dollars. Giving him an hourly rate of 2018-USD$1,369,863 per hour over 30 years.
How many hours do successful people read? ›
The 5-Hour Rule has been adopted by many modern icons, including Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffet. These successful people recognize the importance of continuous learning and deliberate practice.
What is the big think the 5 hour rule? ›
The 5-hour rule asks us to devote at least one hour a day to learning, experimenting, and reflecting. It's a trick used by the richest and most successful people in the world. Here are three easy steps to start your own 5-hour rule.
What happens if you read 3 hours a day? ›
If you are reading for 3 hours daily, good for you. That just means that you are doing something you enjoy, and who is someone to tell you that there is such a thing as too much when you enjoy it. So you can read for 5 hours straight, and it's no one's business to tell you that you are “reading too much”.
Was Bill Gates a billionaire at 30? ›
At the age of 31, he became the youngest billionaire in the world when Microsoft's rising share price rocketed his wealth to $1.25bn. In 1990, Microsoft passed $1bn in revenue for the first time.
What does Bill Gates read every day? ›
Bill Gates primarily reads non-fiction books dealing with society, technology, and science issues, but he also enjoys reading sci-fi.
How did Bill Gates get rich so fast? ›
By the start of the 1990s he had become the PC industry's ultimate kingmaker. Largely on the strength of Microsoft's success, Gates amassed a huge paper fortune as the company's largest individual shareholder.
The Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the top three richest man in the world said that he spends about 5 to 6 hours a day reading at least 5 newspapers and also read through pages and pages of financial documents every single day.
How many hours does Warren Buffett read a day? ›
Indeed, the Oracle of Omaha has said that he spends "five or six hours a day" reading books and newspapers. And while it may be difficult to set aside nearly a full work day's worth of hours to read, it recently got a little bit easier to consume information like Warren Buffett.
Do billionaires read a lot? ›
Bill Gates was a voracious reader earlier in life, and today he still reads more than almost anyone. Before he co-founded Paypal, and way before he became the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk would read for up to 10 hours every day. Charlie Munger said that his kids used to “think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”
What is Bill Gates hourly rate? ›
According to estimates, Gates earns about $10.95 million a day, which is equivalent to about $117 per second. Another set of data shows that Gates earns about 7.6 million US dollars a day, which is equivalent to 319635 US dollars per hour.
What time does Bill Gates sleep and wake up? ›
According to The Huffington Post, “Bill Gates gets 7 hours of sleep each night from 12:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m.”
What is the 5 hour rule Benjamin Franklin? ›
It's said that the 5 hour rule was developed by Benjamin Franklin, so as a concept, it has been around for quite a while. The idea is that we should take an hour of every weekday to do some directed, purposeful learning, using the time to either learn a new skill, read, practise, reflect, determine goals or experiment.
How many pages can Bill Gates read in an hour? ›
Bill Gates Reading Habits
According to his wife Melinda, Bill reads approximately 150 pages per hour, a staggering speed, especially given that he takes in and understands the vast majority of what he reads (his comprehension level is off the charts).
