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14 Ways to Cultivate a Lifetime Reading
Habit
by Leo Babaut
“To acquire the habit of reading is to
construct for yourself a refuge from almost all
the miseries of life.” —
W.
Somerset Maugham
Somewhere
after “lose weight”, “stop procrastinating”, and
“fall in love”, “read more” is one
of
the top goals that many people set for themselves.
And rightly so: A good book can be
hugely satisfying, can teach you about
things beyond your daily horizons, and can create
characters so vivid you feel as if you
really know them.
If
reading is a habit you’d like to get into, there
are a number of ways to cultivate it.
First, realize that reading
is highly enjoyable, if you have a good book. If
you have a lousy
book (or an extremely
difficult one) and you are forcing yourself
through it, it will seem like
a chore.
If this happens for several days in a row,
consider abandoning the book and
finding one that you’ll really
love.
Other than
that, try these tips to cultivate a lifetime
reading habit:
times.
You should have a few
set times during every day when you’ll read for at
least 5-10 minutes. These are times
that you will read no matter what
—
triggers that
happen each day. For example, make it a
habit to read during breakfast and lunch (and
even dinner if you eat alone). And if
you also read every time you’re sitting on the
can, and
when you go to bed, you now
have four times a day when you read for 10 minutes
each
—
or 40
minutes a day. That’s a great start, and by itself
would be an excellent daily reading
habit. But there’s more you can do.
carry a
book.
Wherever you go, take a book with
you. When I leave the house,
I always
make sure to have my drivers license, my keys and
my book, at a minimum. The
book stays
with me in the car, and I take it into the office
and to appointments and pretty
much
everywhere I go, unless I know I definitely won’t
be reading (like at a movie). If there
is a time when you have to wait (like
at a doctor’s office or at the DMV), whip
out your
book and read.
Great way to pass the time.
a list.
Keep a
list of all the great books you want to read. You
can keep this in
your journal, in a
pocket notebook, on your personal home page, on
your personal wiki,
wherever. Be sure
to add to it whenever you hear about a good book,
online or in person.
Keep a running
list, and cross out the ones you read. Tech trick:
create a Gmail account
for your book
list, and email the address every time you hear
about a good book. Now
your inbox will
be
your reading list. When you’ve read
a book, file it under “Done”. If you
want, you can even reply to the message
(to the same address) with notes about the book,
and those will be in the same
conversation thread, so now your Gmail account is
your
reading log too.
a quiet place.
Find a place in your home where you can sit in a
comfortable chair
(don’t lay down
unless you’re going to sleep) and curl up with a
good book without
interruptions. There
should be no television or computer near the chair
to minimize
distractions, and no music
or noisy family members/roommates. If you don’t
have a place
like this, create one.
television/Internet.
If you really want
to read more, try cutting back on TV or
Internet consumption. This may be
difficult for many people. Still, every minute you
reduce
of Internet/TV, you could use
for reading. This could create hours of book
reading time.
to your kid.
If you have children, you
must, must read to them. Creating the
reading habit in your kids is the
best way to ensure they’ll be readers
when they grow
up … and it will help
them to be successful in life as well. Find some
great children’s
books, and read to
them. At the same time, you’re developing the
reading habit in
yourself … and
spending some qua
lity time with your
child as well.
a log.
Similar to the reading list,
this log should have not only the title and author
of the books you read, but the dates
you start and finish them if possible. Even
better, put
a note next to each with
your thoughts about the book. It is extremely
satisfying to go back
over the log
after a couple of months to see all the great
books you’ve read.
to used book shops.
My
favorite place to go is a discount book store
where I drop
off all my old books (I
usually take a couple of boxes of books) and get a
big discount on
used books I find in
the store. I typically spend only a couple of
dollars for a dozen or more
books, so
although I read a lot, books aren’t a major
expense. And it is very fun to browse
through the new books people have
donated. Make your trip to a used book store a
regular thing.
a library day.
Even cheaper
than a used book shop is a library, of course.
Make it
a weekly trip.
fun and compelling
books.
Find books that really grip you
and keep you going.
Even if they aren’t
literary masterpieces, they make you want to read
—
and that’s the
goal here. After you have cultivated
the reading habit, you can move on to more
difficult
stuff, but for now, go for
the fun, gripping stuff. Stephen King, John
Grisham, Tom Clancy,
Robert Ludlum,
Nora Roberts, Sue Grafton, Dan Brown … all those
popular authors are
popular for a
reason
—
they tell great
stories. Other stuff you might like: Vonnegut,
William
Gibson, Douglas Adams, Nick
Hornby, Trevanian, Ann Patchett, Terry Pratchett,
Terry
McMillan, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
All excellent storytellers.