How to Be a Good Reader
10 Tips for Reading
What’s Your Relationship with Reading?
I love to read. Thanks to my Mom, it is something I have loved since I was a little girl.
Of course, reading and I have gone through phases - as everything in life does.
But it has always been a sort of North Star for me. Something I come back to - when all is well and both life and time feel more free or when all is chaos and I need something familiar and comforting to fall back on.
I know everyone has their own unique relationship with reading. Maybe you have always loved it, but you have grown distant lately. Maybe you have always hated it and still do. Or maybe you have always aspired to be a reader but have never been able to move this goal from dream to reality. There’s a million possibilities.
Wherever you find yourself in your journey with reading, I want to offer you my own personal guiding rules. These ideas act as boundaries for my relationship with reading - to both nurture and protect it.
I hope they can do the same for you.
My Reading Rules
Take Breaks. We are on screens so much in today’s world - our phones, our computers, TVs, even our Kindles! It is so important to take time to rest your eyes. This could be as simple as setting a 25 minute timer to read and then taking a quick five minute *screen free* break. You could stretch, walk around, get a snack, step outside - just don’t look at screens!
Set Achievable Goals. Goals are only fun if you feel like you can reach them! Many book tracking apps have a feature where you can set an annual reading goal of how many books you want to read. I like to also break this down into a monthly reading goal as well. Beyond just the number of books, you could set goals around page numbers, series you want to finish, or specific books or genres to read. I think it’s important to have just for fun goals to work towards, along with your other more serious ones.
Track Your Reading. There are so many ways to do this, and you can read more about my favorite apps for tracking reading here. Setting achievable goals and then tracking your reading is so motivating. Tracking allows you to do so many things - keep up with what you read and want to read, retain more of what you read, organize notes or highlights, recommend books to others, etc.
Engage with the Text. This might feel very high school English but engaging with the material makes it more enjoyable, memorable, and helps you connect to it! The way you do this will vary from person to person. It could look like highlighting, journaling about what you read, annotating, taking detailed notes, talking about it with a friend or in a book club, creating a post to share on social media, writing a review - anything where you can form your own thoughts and ideas, using what you read as inspiration. There are so many possibilities, and this is where I believe you can really learn and grow through reading.
Don’t Finish Books You Don’t Like. If you read 12 books a year for 60 years, you will have read 720 books in your lifetime. When you think about all the books you want to read along with the fact that so many books you will read in the future have not even been written yet, it really puts things into perspective. You most likely won’t be able to read all the books you want, so don’t waste time reading books you don’t like. It’s okay to put it down!
Read Things You Enjoy. This goes off the last one, but don’t read books just because other people are reading them or because they are popular. You can have your own book taste! People seem to think there is “good” taste in books, movies, or music and then “bad” taste. But all they really mean when they say someone has “good” taste is that they like the same things as others. For me, I don’t like reading spice, and that isn’t necessarily aligned to what everyone else is reading. I choose to not read some of the super popular books because of this, and that is okay with me! You have your own unique taste - read what you like!
Have Your Next Book Queued Up. This one is pretty straight forward. Before you finish a book, have your next book ready and waiting! This helps you not to lose your reading momentum. Hopefully, you are excited about your next read, and it will keep you motivated! And if you aren’t excited about it, maybe you need to pick a different book.
Mix Up What & How You Read. Read different genres and authors than you usually do. Change up how you read with audiobooks, ereaders, physical copies, etc. Find a comfortable rhythm between books you typically read and books outside of your comfort zone!
Designate a Reading Time. Set aside a specific time of day for reading. This could look like reading during your morning routine, listening to an audiobook at the gym, while cooking, or when driving to work, reading on your Kindle before bed, or some combination of these.
Create a Reading Space. This doesn’t have to be anything crazy, but just like our brain associates our table with eating or our bed with sleeping, our brain can learn to associate a certain space (or item) with reading. This in turn can help us focus. Your space could be a whole library in your home or a designated chair you sit in when reading. It could even be a specific blanket or book light you use. The important thing is to use it only when reading.
That’s the end of my list! Whatever your relationship with reading, I hope this was helpful for you!
As always, thank you so much for reading! I hope you have a wonderful week, and I will talk to you next Monday!
Take care,
Caroline
Great suggestions! I need to do more of these, especially creating reading momentum. I like that idea! Thanks!