How to read more Books?

Developing the habit of reading books is something that all of us want. If you are someone who doesn’t read much, then I’m sure you feel that there is this huge imaginary barrier that is stopping us from pushing ourselves to read. It goes like, “I don’t have much time” or “I don’t need to read” or “I’ve tried but it’s impossible.”

A year ago, I was just like this. I could give you thousands of reasons why reading and I are poles apart. But, as a complete lockdown was introduced in March 2020 in my country India, my chock-a-block bookshelf (which I now pass by more frequently) started making me feel more guilty for buying these books and just keeping them as a showpiece. This made me venture on building the habit of reading books.

In this article, I’ll be sharing 10 Tips on how to read more books. I personally practice all of these and it has produced wonderful results. So, at least it works for me and I’m sure many of these tips will be helpful for you too.

This article is for you if you want to inculcate the habit of reading regularly or are already a regular reader but want to read more.

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

Tip 1: Make it impossible to not read

Start by setting a goal so small that it is impossible that you cannot do it. If you don’t read much at present, start by reading just 1 page. I’m sure it’s not possible you cannot do this if you really want to develop the habit of reading. Then in the next week, jump on to reading 2 pages daily, and so on. Don’t go hard on yourself in the very beginning like reading 150 pages the very first day. If you are a regular reader, you can just try and read a couple of more pages that you would generally read, to read more.

On days when you will not be able to read much because of other tasks that demand your attention, read just a couple of pages to not let this habit break.

As simple as it sounds, it is a very effective way to develop this habit; in fact, for developing any habit.

Tip 2: Set up a fixed time or schedule

Starting a habit is easy but maintaining the streak is very difficult especially without a structure. So one of the proven ways of introducing a structure to help us maintain a habit is to do it at the same time everyday. Say, every morning you have a free slot from 8:00 to 8:30 am. Great! Doing so will make the deliberate actions of reading a ritual in your life, just like brushing your teeth.

As an extension to this idea, you can read before or after some already developed habit. Confused? Let me give you an example. Say, everyday you have lunch at a different time; any time between 12:00 and 2:00 pm. So make it a rule to read everyday after lunch. In my opinion, this offers us more flexibility especially when your schedule varies everyday.

Tip 3: Decide a fixed number of pages or sections or duration to read

Different people have different habits for reading and studying. For some, keeping the number of pages read is a preferred metric for measuring progress, number of sections/chapters for others, and time spent on studying for yet others. I’m sure all of us have this habit from high school. Why not use the same approach towards reading? Keep it a practice to not close the book until you’ve completed the chapter or read 10 pages or set a timer for 20 minutes for reading.

Tip 4: Keep the books visible

As I had mentioned earlier, seeing the books lying on my shelf in dust made me feel guilty. If it’s the same for you, make sure that the books you want to read are in front of your eyes almost all the time. Even if you don’t feel that way, having books where you can see them and reach to, will more likely result in you actually reading it sooner than if it were in a closed cupboard.

Tip 5: Read Multiple books at a time

This one might sound crazy or weird at first. Say, you are reading two books (“The Monk who sold his Ferrari” — a self-help book and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” — a fantasy novel). You would be more interested in reading at least one of these books, especially if they are from different genres, than if you were reading just one. This happens… like you might not feel like reading a self-help book today. Or sometimes that book you are reading might be important for you but too boring to read even a single page today. Having an alternative to read keeps you going on and helps in maintaining your streak.

You can also read multiple books depending on how much time you get to read through the day. Say, you prefer reading a religious script like “The Bhagavad Gita” in the morning the first thing after you get ready for work and a romantic novel like “Pride and Prejudice” after you are done with your day.

It’s perfectly fine if this doesn’t work for you. Everyone has a different way to go about reading!

Tip 6: Plan what you are going to read

Try to plan out what you are going to read and when beforehand, maybe the night before or that day in the morning. Like, I prefer reading books, which share some actionable steps that I can apply during the day, in the morning (Eg. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Caregie); biographies before going to bed.

Tip 7: Distraction free environment

This is most importantly for people who can’t live without checking their Instagram every 2 minutes. Cutting away from such distractions for a mere 15 minutes a day to read can help you get into the habit of reading easily. Moreover, an uninterrupted reading session can lead to a richer reading experience.

Tip 8: You don’t need to read cover to cover

This is one of the biggest misconceptions (or rather OCD) that most people have. To some degree, I too have it. This is not quite applicable for novels and iction; you would not want to skip parts of these books or you may run the risk of missing out on key events of the story. But when it comes to non-fiction and self-help, you can gladly ignore what’s not relevant for you. If you are reading a book on how to maintain your diet and be in shape and it includes a chapter on reducing your love handles, it is okay if you skip this chapter if you are among the lucky ones to not have any. You can surely read it for your reference, but you don’t need to.

Also, many people and previously even I would lose my mind if someone told that they are leaving a book halfway. From a young age, we are taught to finish what we started. As helpful as this advice serves in other aspects of our life, I personally have started to feel that it’s okay to not finish a book, most importantly at a time when either the book is irrelevant for me (which seemed relevant at the time I started it) or is so boring that it feels like dragging myself forcefully to the grave.

Tip 9: Announce your reading goals

If none of the above tips have proven to be effective, this one surely will. It involves telling other people that you are planning to read this book. After doing so, you don’t want to be looked at like not sticking to your word. This contrarian approach will nudge you to read more. Sounds harsh, but definitely works!

Tip 10: Goodreads

Maintain a list of all the books you want to read, are currently reading, and have completed reading on this wonderful platform. For those of you who are not aware of what Goodreads is — Goodreads is an American social cataloging website that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists. You can also track the progress of your current book, set reading goals for the year, join book clubs, connect with like minded individuals, and explore many more books. You can view my Goodreads profile here.

With this I would like to conclude this article. Feel free to drop in a like if these tips were helpful. Also, do share with me how you were able to read more.

You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Last but not the least, I would be happy to receive any book recommendations from your side :)