My friends always tell me they wish they could read as much as I do. Now, I’m definitely not any less busy than the average person. Reading time doesn’t magically appear in my schedule. I just happen to have figured out some ways to implement reading into my daily routine. They’re really pretty simple and painless, and if you follow these tips you’ll likely find the time to get back into reading and feel accomplished as you watch your list of “read” books steadily increase.
1. Audiobooks are your friends
I never gave audiobooks much of a thought before this past year. Nobody really talks about them and the most I knew about them was from the bulky cases of outdated CDs I’d pass in my library or the annoying ads that would keep popping up on Amazon telling me to start my free trial for Audible today! However, once I started taking long commutes on the train or bus and taking long walks across campus to get to my classes, I realized how convenient audiobooks would be for passing the time.
There are sites like Amazon where you can buy digital audiobooks that will download straight to Audible and then you can use the app to listen on your phone. You don’t even need to purchase audiobooks in order for them to be accessible to you! Many libraries have vast collections of electronic resources such as audiobooks and ebooks that are available to you through the free Overdrive app. This is a super easy way to download audiobooks for a few weeks at a time right onto your phone. You can connect to your library back home through your library card and even the Cornell University Library, which is as simple as typing in your NetID and password to access many bestselling books in both ebook and electronic form.
2. Read before bed (it’ll make you fall asleep)
During the busy school week, you’re sure to be working on assignments and studying late into the night. When you finally roll into bed, I find that it’s nice to give your brain a mental break. Reading a book for your own enjoyment for a half hour can relax your mind and lull you to sleep. That’s not to say you should pick a book to bore you. Just read something completely unrelated to your homework that will remove you from the stresses of your school life for a little while. You’ll have that short time reserved each day to keep you sane and calm.
3. Indulge in lazy weekend mornings
Nobody likes to wake up early, especially on a weekend (and if you do, I envy you.) A nice way to ease into the weekend is to begin your Saturday and Sunday mornings with an hour or so of pleasurable reading. This will gradually stir you from your sleepy state and grant you a feeling of accomplishment, so when you actually decide to bunker down and work on your homework later on, you will be mentally prepared to focus.
4. Make it a social activity
When you have so much on your plate, it’s difficult to find time to read just for you. If you can find some friends with similar interests and you all agree to read the same book, you’ll feel more driven to keep up a consistent reading schedule. This is because you will have someone there to talk about what’s happening in the story. Maybe you’re a bit on the competitive side and having someone read the same book as you will prompt you to try to reach your end goal of finishing faster, so you reach the finish line first. This way, you can talk about all your feels and be there for them when they get to those emotional, intense portions of the plot too.
5. Set reading goals
It sounds a bit like unnecessary work to establish fixed goals for how much you read, whether in the entire year, within the next month, or even just for one particular day. However, if you mentally decide you want to read a certain amount within a set period of time, your mind will subconsciously work in the time to accomplish this goal, because you don’t want to disappoint yourself. Plus, once you achieve this page-goal or book-goal, you’ll feel like you accomplished something, even though it was just an arbitrary assignment designed within your own head. Then doing your school work won’t feel as taxing or stressful, because you can rest assured that you already accomplished one thing in your day, so what’s stopping you from doing your next task? Goodreads is a great website for tracking the books you read and updating your page progress. If you want to think long-term, you can use the built in feature that allows you to set a yearly reading goal, which will update as you input the books you read. Watch as your progression steadily increases!
Go get reading!