Many people, myself included, love to read but don’t read as much as we would like to. Life can get in the way and, before we know it, we’ve stopped making time for reading. This could be for a week, a month or even a year.
Want to know how to read more? These 8 techniques have helped me…
Acknowledging that it is difficult. Phones buzz, laptops stay open late into the night and Netflix is constantly adding new TV shows. In our modern world full of distractions, slowing down and putting time aside to do something absorbing like reading can be difficult. Acknowledging this helps me be less hard on myself.
Read what you want to read. I’m a bit of a people pleaser and I’ve also done two degrees with specific reading lists. But trying to read books I don’t like results in no reading at all. Now, I read what I want and have no problem putting aside books I no longer want to finish.
Try ebooks. Again, this is great for reading on the go or when travelling. I think we all prefer not to lug around lots of big books.
Audiobooks. Before I started listening to audiobooks, I couldn’t read on public transport if it was too noisy. If you suffer from travel sickness, audiobooks could also be great for you. Before I’d always assumed audiobooks wouldn’t work for me, but I now love them.
Always packing a book. Nowadays I don’t go anywhere without a physical book, e-reader or headphones to listen to an audiobook.
Reading more than one book at once. This helps me read more because it means I have a book for every situation or mood.
Remembering I can’t do everything. For a while, I wanted to read more but was struggling to sacrifice any Netflix, YouTube or social media time. Now I try to be more intentional about what I watch and how I use social media and this has freed up some reading time.
Letting go of the pressure to read. Reading is a hobby, but months spent reading very little started to make me feel ‘behind’. It’s only once I let go of this pressure that I started to read more.
If this blog post has inspired you to read more too, you can use my affiliate link for The Book Depository to buy a book and get started.
Do you have any reading tips of your own? Let me know!
Books in photographs:
Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith
Trains and Lovers by Alexander McCall Smith
Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue
A Portable Shelter by Kirsty Logan
The Forward Book of Poetry 2017
Freya Writes 
love this!! totally agree about the putting pressure on ourselves to read thing, especially now that theres things like goodreads and reading challenges and stuff. i just try to remind myself that im doing this for FUN lol 🤗
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Thank you! Yess you’re completely right, Goodreads is so helpful for finding new things to read, but it can add that element of comparison/pressure. As you say, it’s all about reminding ourselves why we’re doing it 🙂
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Haha! I love it! I feel guilty sometimes because of the amount of time I spend on reading instead of other stuff! Seems we are just guilty of putting pressure on ourselves to do more or less of anything!
I love reading and have worked out that putting my kindle on my exercise bike results in an hours pedalling whizzing by in no time! I was linked to the world of google maps and lioved cycling round the world but I got bored eventually so now my trusty kindle is my cycling companion!
I remember my Grandmother telling me the story of when her father grabbed her book and threw it into the fire, exclaiming “you’ve always got your head stuck in a book” – extreme but I guess the equivalent of many a parent and their frustration with their children’s’ head stuck in some electronic gadget or other.
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Yeah, we all need to stop being so hard on ourselves for having down time, don’t we? Kindle on the exercise bike sounds good, I’ve recently tried listening to audiobooks while running/cycling on an exercise bike and it’s sometimes a nice change from music 🙂
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Great tips, Freya! I always thought I’d never get an e-reader, but now I have one it’s great. I can takes multiple books on trips/holidays without being weighed down, and read even when it’s dark.
All your ideas are great though. I think I may need to get audio books for when I’m driving! x
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Yeah I wasn’t keen on ereaders at first either! I don’t use mine all the time but, yeah, it’s great for travelling 🙂 and, of course, you can get a lot of classics on Kindle for free which is great. Thanks for commenting 🙂
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🙂 People can also get into the habit of reading more by actually reading a chapter daily.
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