[codingdave]

Zero.

I totally appreciate the value in it, but I'm old and just have a hard time making personal growth in my job skills a priority over time with family. I read more before I had children, and I would read if I was could spend some work hours on it.

I've also seen people who read too much - all their work philosophy and decisions are not based on experience, but on a book they read. I feel the flow should be to: read -> synthesize new info with experience -> test out some changes to your way of working -> decide whether or not it works. But I've seen too much of: read -> declare sweeping changes to the entire team -> read another book.

[cenny]

I can recognise the problem you are describing of people reading and not reflecting before applying. I also see your point of limited time, and I don't think choosing work over family is a good idea.

One thing we have been doing for some years at my company is that I started a book circle to encourage my peers to read more and me to get more people to discuss and reflect with. We encourage people to read on work time and we go through 2-3 books a year. Check out my article for tips on starting a book circle for programming books (https://www.programmingbooks.dev/articles/book_circle/)