As I already shared my 2022 new year goals (see later), “reading books” was one of them. Here, in this post, I’m going to share my book reading experience for the last 30 days. If you’re trying to build a habit of book reading, I hope this post will be helpful for you because I’m going to share the things that worked for me and those that did not.
Let’s get started.
While writing this post, I’ve already completed three books – yeah! I am on a streak. Below are the things which worked for me very well,
Keep the book around you
Instead of having your mobile phone with you, keep the book which you’re reading around you always. Especially if you’re a person who can’t read books continuously for like an hour, you better keep your book with you always and read at least 10 minutes whenever you get time for it which piles up to 20 to 25 pages at the end of your day, and that is more than enough.
Pick a time in your daily schedule
Fix a time in your daily schedule for reading books and stick to it no matter what happens, or replace your new book reading habit with any of your unhealthy habits that you want to let go of.
What did I do? I’ve fixed my schedule for reading books during the time of going to bed and after waking up in the morning because this is the time when I mostly use my mobile (which is a bad habit, and I tried a lot to break this habit for a long time), so I replaced that with reading books, and it worked well for me.
Hide your phone
Please don’t have your mobile with you when you’re reading a book because if any notification pops up your mind tells you to look at that so better put your phone in focus mode, keep it in a nearby room, or better throw away that’ll be a promising idea.
Start with the easiest one first
Don’t try to start with the book which is explaining about rocket science , go for the book which is in simple English so it’ll be easy to read and with a smaller number of pages so you can complete it quickly which drives you to the next book to keep up this habit.
What did I do? – The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – This is the book I started with which is in an easy language and anyone can understand it and it has a total of 160 pages only ( after ignoring the epilogue, prologue, and author sections). If you’re a beginner like me, I’ll recommend this book for you to start with .
Choose the correct “genre”
This is like the previous point, choose your genre of books which you like to read this gives you the interest to go for the next book.
What did I do? – I like to read books on non-fiction than fiction ones and within non-fiction, I like to read about self-development and personal finance-related books. Like the same, you choose your own genre of books which will help you to read more books and you can take this habit in the longer run.
Fix a deadline
If you’re reading a book try to have a deadline for finishing it, why I am saying this because without a deadline you will not be serious enough to complete it. Not only for reading habit, whatever habit you’re going through trying to have minor checkpoints or deadlines within that habit to build a robust habit for a lifelong.
PS: Don’t have a tight deadline and you’ll lose your interest in reading books, have enough time for the deadline, and try to complete before the deadline time.
What did I do? – As I shared in my 2022 goals, I’ve fixed 12 books for this year which means 1 book a month. In this instance, I have enough deadlines and I’ve completed my first book before my deadline with the motivation of completing the book before the deadline, now I am moving on to the next one with another deadline coming on the way.
Follow the 2-day rule
Whatever habit you’re trying to build you can include the “Two-day” rule in it. It is as simple as its name you can skip a day when you’re not willing to do any of your habits on a particular day, you can skip that day without doing it but for the very next day, you should not skip. Here in reference to our context, if you don’t have access to books to read or have enough motivation to read on a particular day of a week and it’s completely fine you can go ahead skip that day from reading books, but you need to be sure to not to skip the next day also that is the catch here.
That’s it, from my book reading experience these are all the things that worked for me for the last 30 days. I hope this post may help you if you’re trying to build one.
Take care,
Peranesh xx