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I love reading books.
Why?
Because an academic book, for example, is an extreme summary of a topic, where authors can write in just 300 or 500 pages all of what they learned through their careers.
However, in busy times is hard to find the right spot in your schedule to read something.
So in this article, I will share with you 4 tips that helped me to increase my book reading per year.
Tip 1: Make a Schedule and Create a Tiny Habit to Read Every Week
The most important tips for consistent reading are a schedule and a habit.
For example, I enjoy waking up early to read, write, and study.
In my case, morning is the most peaceful and productive part of the day.
Note that I'm comfortable with this as I'm a lark, if you're an owl you can stay late in the night.
So every morning I have the habit of reading and studying for at least 30 minutes.
This habit is so attached to me that when I can't study I feel weird.
Additionally, I use my free mornings on the weekend to study for at least 3 hours.
Tip 2: Decompose Your Book and Make a Plan to Digest It
When I start reading a book, I first plan how to read it successfully.
The first thing I do is to check the book's content to have an intuition of how long each chapter is, how many chapters they are, etc.
After that, there are 2 ways to make a plan:
- Digest the book based on pages.
- Digest the book based on time.
For example, if the book has 10 chapters with approximately 30 pages per chapter (300 hundred pages in total), I try to read at least one chapter per day.
Another way is to set a time to read each day, let's say 1 hour.
I prefer the second strategy because some books require more reading time than others (for example, math or artificial intelligence).
More about this in Tip 4!
Tip 3: Read Vertically, not Horizontally
I skim a lot when reading.
But this depends on the book, of course.
If it's a novel, then skimming will make you lose a lot of important information.
However, if it is more like an academic book (almost all my consumption), then skimming is good when you already know some topics.
For example, when I read a book about neuroscience and the chapter is about something I already learned, I skim.
I read vertically, looking for some keywords and if something is interesting that I don't know.
If not, I just go on to another page.
Tip 4: Set a Goal in Minutes, Not in Pages
If you think to digest a book while only focusing on pages you will get stressed.
As I said before, reading a mathematics book is not the same as another on a topic where you feel comfortable.
So if your goal is to read a chapter per day, that will take you way more time if you're reading a math book or one about psychology (a topic I feel comfortable with as I'm a psychologist).
So what I do instead is to focus on minutes.
For example, I try to read 30 minutes or 1 hour per day.
To do this successfully, I love to read while having breakfast or going to or returning to work.
Without noticing it, I can finish a book in a week just in those minutes.
A tiny habit that gets bigger at the end of the week.
Conclusion
That's it!
4 steps to successfully increase your reading without even noticing it.
Remember, a habit and a schedule are key to mastering almost anything.
Let me know what are your strategies for reading :)
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Thanks for reading!
See you!
Axel