How long does it take to read The Power of Habit?
Charles Duhigg
At an average reading speed of 250 words a minute, The Power of Habit takes 6 hours 45 minutes to read. The unabridged audiobook runs 11 hours at 1x, or 7h 15m at 1.5x.
Charles Duhigg's book moves from individual habits to companies and then whole communities. It's about twice the length of Atomic Habits: six and three-quarter hours at an average pace against three and a half.
Average is about 250 WPM. Measure yours in two minutes and every time on this page recalculates.
How much to read a day
At 250 words a minute, to finish the book:
Have a deadline in mind? The pages-per-day calculator works it out for any date.
How we measured it
Method: audiobook estimate. Estimated from the original 2012 unabridged audiobook narrated by Mike Chamberlain (10:53) at 155 words a minute. Other editions of that recording run from 10:30 to 11:10, the longest with a new afterword, so treat this as close, not exact. A 2025 recording read by Duhigg is a separate edition.
Part of our study of the 100 most popular books, last checked November 2026. Reading times assume steady reading; editions, translations and your own pace all move them.
See how long it really takes you
Log it in Parch as you read. It tracks your pages, sessions and streak, so you'll know your real pace, and how long the next one will take.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to read The Power of Habit?
About 6h 45m at an average reading speed of 250 words a minute: 8h 26m at 200 and 5h 37m at 300.
How many words are in The Power of Habit?
About 101,215 words. That's estimated from the unabridged audiobook at a narration pace of 155 words a minute, so treat it as close, not exact.
How many pages a day to finish The Power of Habit in a month?
About 13 pages a day, or 14m of reading a day at an average pace. That assumes about 368 pages at 275 words a page; real page counts vary by edition.
Is The Power of Habit longer than Atomic Habits?
About twice as long: roughly 101,000 words against 52,000 by the same audiobook estimate.
How long is The Power of Habit audiobook?
10 hours 53 minutes for the original Mike Chamberlain recording, though editions vary by up to 20 minutes either way. At 1.5x, about 7 and a quarter hours.