How To Make Reading Habit – 12 Effective Tips

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin

For as long as I can remember, my teachers and parents have always told me the benefits of reading. Your case might be the same as mine. Their advice urges us to incorporate reading as a habit in our lives. But sometimes, sticking consistently to a habit becomes hard.

 And like most of our new year’s resolutions, this pledge of “reading more” diminishes with time. So how can we make reading a habit?-A habit that stays with us.

For that purpose, we have compiled a list of valuable tips that will help you develop a reading habit. These are the tips that I got benefited from.

So let’s get started:

2 Effective Tips to Make Reading Habit

1.  Treat books just as a blog post

Yes, that is important. That is why I wanted to discuss it at the start. We often treat books so sacred that we don’t want to leave them unfinished. Initially, I would also only start a new book once I finished my already unfinished book. And I never read that unfinished book nor started a new one. Honestly, that approach leads you nowhere.

 Look what we do with blog posts. We start reading it, and if it fails to hold our attention. We simply close it and jump over to another interesting one.

Same we can do with books. If we somehow stumbled upon some boring book, we can simply choose a better one in the giant sea of knowledge.

2. Read whatever you desire

Start reading a complicated book, and soon you’ll lose your interest in reading. You might not be able to develop reading as a consistent habit. So start with whatever genre you want. Be it fiction, non-fiction, romance, adventure, comedy, or whatever.

Who defines good and bad? As long as you are happy and content in reading that book, What else do you want?

Reading improves your comprehension, vocabulary, concentration ability, and memory. And you can get these benefits in whatever genre of books you choose.

3. Think about how it is going to help you

Decide at the start why you are reading that book. Are you reading to get information about that topic, to improve your vocabulary, or just for entertainment? If you are reading for educating yourself, then you might pay more attention to its concepts. If it is for vocabulary, you might highlight jargon. If it is for entertainment, you are reading and just enjoying it all in a more relaxed state.

5. Use Book Accessories

The more you will make any job easy and enjoyable the less effort it will take to become a habit. If you want to cultivate a reading habit in no time then use book reading gadgets like a book page holder (helps you to hold a book with or without one hand), a good reading chair (gives you a good sitting experience, and if you are kindle user, get a kindling holder(holds kindle for you). These book accessories directly help you to make the overall reading experience a lot easier.

4. Write a book review

Humans tend to do the things that benefit them. And we often don’t do some tasks heartily if we have no interest in it. The same goes for books. If they don’t bring advantage to us, then reading becomes a chore for us.

Like it does benefit us by improving our personalities, mind, comprehension, and many others. But what if we write a review after we finish the book? It would help us get a better understanding of the book. And we will read more attentively as we will know that we will do a review in the end.

Any social book platform would help in this regard, e.g., Goodreads. When someone endorses you, it will fill your desire for gratification. And you’ll feel more valuable.

6. Find like-minded people

When your social circle loves to read, you tend to adopt this habit even more. Surround yourself with like-minded people. Go to the library or any book club. If you can’t find any, join some online communities which discuss books. Goodreads.com is one of the finest platforms for book enthusiasts. People share their book reviews there, get book recommendations, read book summaries, and even set up their library containing their favorite books.

7. Make it cool, use gadgets:

Reading gets more fun when we use different tools and gadgets. You can get a kindle, maybe. Kindle proved to be a game-changing experience for many.

Russ Grandinetti, once said that kindle users read three times more books than traditional readers.

Some people use paper clips, book stands, etc. Although these tools are not absolute essentials. But some people do enjoy having them.

8. Make a mindset shift

It is kind of similar to what we actually discussed in the first two points. It is not a big deal if we leave an unenjoyable book unfinished. We can read whatever genre we like as long as we enjoy it.

 It is ok not to read classics at first. Start with reading beginner-friendly content. Once we develop the habit of reading, we may jump up and read complicated and classical books.

It is ok to sometimes skim through a book. When reading a fantasy book, we might skim through a few paragraphs if we don’t feel like reading it. Educational books do require thorough reading.

And it’s ok to read multiple books at a time. Maybe you read a different book in the morning and different ones at night.

All I meant to say, there is no need to complicate things. Don’t treat reading as a chore. Read as you like.

8. Set a routine

Adopting a new habit or leaving any bad habit is easy for people who have self-discipline. If we develop a routine reading time, we get used to this new habit after some time. Like I prefer reading at night. I set my alarm, keep my phone away at the table, then grab a book and accompany it to my bed. I read it until I felt drowsy.

Some people prefer reading soon after they wake up. Set a time according to your need and preference and read daily.

9. Read actively

It is also vital to read actively. Sometimes we’re just acting to read. Stop after a page or two, and think about what was written in the recent pages.

10. Keep your book at a visible place

If your book is right in front of your eyes, it reminds you to read it. And then you tend to open it more often rather than when it is hidden in some drawer.

11. A peaceful study area

It’s better if you could find a comfortable place for reading. It can be any book club, library, or any peaceful corner of your house. Eliminate all the distractions like a phone to help you focus more.

12. How to make your reading 10x faster?

The modern age is so fast. We often are so busy with our daily schedules that it’s hard for us to read more. But we still can read as many books with digital solutions. You can use an audio platform that will increase your pace of reading books. You can then listen to books while you’re on a walk, or maybe traveling or wherever you want. Audible is a good audio platform for listening to your favorite books.

Final verdict

Books are our incredible partners who never leave us alone. They make you knowledgeable, sharpen your mind, help you broaden your vision and mindset, improve your focus abilities, and much more. I hope these tips benefit you in any way.