If I ask 100 people do you like books? 80 of them will say yes, but only 10 will say they read regularly.
Why is it that we can't read books continuously? What stops us?
Well, first there are so many options. Of genres, of authors, of books, of length of books. And if that wasn't enough, there are ways of reading books, hardcopy, Kindle, mobile or iPad, even web on laptop.
Most of the people spend so much time and energy in taking a decision from all these options, that they don't reach the reading phase.
The other reason I've faced is that even if I've shortlisted 1 great book for reading, sometimes my mental bandwidth or mood doesn't make it feel interesting at all, and I pause and eventually pause for a looong time.
What should we then do, to read more books?
There are few practical tips that you can use to read more books
- Choose the platform best suited for you - If you're new to books, don't invest in Kindle, read hardcopy books. Once you have a frequency of finishing 1 book in 2 months then you can invest in Kindle. If you don't want to get hardcopy or Kindle, try the Kindle reading app on phone, but beware reading on phone means you'll be facing a lot of potential distractions! You need to ensure your notifications are off, you have a full screen app to read. If you read at night, you've blue light filter, dark mode on and so on.
- Choose a book with least resistance - You should always have a book that you would love to read. Generally these are mystery, thriller, suspense type books. Whenever you want to start reading such a book can automatically build your interest and ensure that you come back daily. Some author examples are Dan Brown, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Archer, or even Chetan Bhagat for some casual story reading.
- Read multiple books at a time - This might sound counterintuitive but it is the best way to ensure you don't stop reading. I'll give you an example, I was reading "Short history of nearly everything", which is a great book and kept me interested till about 400th page, and then it lost all attention from me. I felt it was repetitive or something. I stopped reading because I didn't want to read that book. I didn't read anything for 1 month because I always finished my books and then started new ones. Well. I was wrong, I didn't want to read THAT book. But I could read other books! So I began 2 books, Short stories by Ruskin Bond (suspense - to ensure my interest is built) and an Harvard Business Review book (on days when I wanted to do intellectual reading). And now I read multiple books all the time, depending on my mood I pick the book I want to!
- Have a fixed slot to read - Reading like any other good habit is tough to build and easy to break. If you're not reading because of less time availability, you'll have to carve out time from your routine. Attach it to something you already do. If you browse social media on your phone before sleeping, replace it with a book read. If you have break times while your code is running, add a casual book read in those breaks. If you've some time after you get ready and before you start working or studying, add a book read there. Have a fix time and that'll make it easy to read books.
These were some tips from my side on improving your book reading habit and reading more and more books! Predecide how, what and when you'll read and you will sail through.
Below is a list of amazing books I've read, you can find all of my books on my Goodreads profile
- Shoe Dog - Phil Knight
- Blink - Malcolm Gladwell
- Atomic Habits - James Clear
- Prisoner of Birth - Jeffrey Archer
- Diary of a little girl - Anne Frank
- PS I love you - Cecelia Ahern
- The Goddess in India - Devdutt Pattanaik