Reading books is one of the simplest and most enriching pleasures in the world, not to mention one of the best ways of enhancing our knowledge on a given subject.
As is so often the case in today’s world, however, this positive and life-affirming pastime often gets overlooked as we find ourselves caught up between the never-ending obligations of the workplace, and the lazier and less demanding forms of entertainment that the digital age provides for us, once we’re home.
Whether you’re hoping to find time to read a drama novel about a lawyer who can handle the most serious medical malpractice cases, or are eager to get lost in a world of pure fantasy, here are some tips for how you can get into the habit of regular reading.
Set yourself an electronics curfew
A large part of the reason why many of us don’t read as much as we should, is due to the fact that, during our free time, we engage in other pastimes and hobbies that are more immediately stimulating, while also requiring less effort and investment on our part.
Primarily, this means watching TV, surfing the web for interesting YouTube videos, and other assorted activities that take place in the digital world.
Setting yourself an electronics curfew at a certain point in the afternoon or evening, is a great way of freeing up the space (and motivation) to get some good reading done.
After all, if your options are sitting around and staring at the ceiling, or reading a good book, it not too hard to see what the more tempting option will be.
Make a reading list, and focus on books that you’re actually interested in
Sometimes people fall out of the habit of reading, because they try to force themselves to read books that they don’t find interesting or enjoyable, simply because they feel obliged to.
A good example of this would be a reader who has a high cultural sense, and feels that they have to make it through War and Peace in order to be properly sophisticated. That’s fine if they like reading War and Peace — or if they at least find it interesting — but if they hate the book, it’s a doomed enterprise.
Focus on reading things that you find genuinely interesting, and make a reading list of books in that category to work your way through.
Set yourself a reading target
It may be that you’ve got plenty of time and opportunity to read on any given day, but just aren’t in the habit of reading, so completely forget to pick up the book in the first place.
A great way of getting around this is to set yourself a daily reading target. This doesn’t have to be anything overly ambitious — even committing to reading a page a day will do — the key purpose of the exercise is to get you in the habit of daily reading.
If done right, you should find that after a short while, going a day without reading begins to feel uncomfortable.