How to Master The Habit of Reading and Staying Consistent

We have always been advised at some point to read more, be it for school or something else. With the tech world taking over, the number of readers is receding. The hustle culture and poor work-life balance can make it quite challenging to find time for reading. To start reading and make it a hobby, it is important to know the health benefits of reading and how incorporating a small part of your daily routine can make huge changes in the long run.

Why Should We Read?

Even though reading may sound boring and a waste of time for some, there are many health benefits that you can get by just reading for five minutes a day. This might sound surprising but reading increases your ability to empathize with others. When you read stories about people’s lives, and their hardships and walk in their shoes, you understand multiple perspectives of how the world is different for different people. It encourages you to engage with people in your life and understand them better.

Research has made it clear that reading offers a ton of health benefits. Reading every day improves sleep quality, reduces your stress, and it also enhances your critical thinking skills. In addition, you develop important skills like enhanced vocabulary, excellent communication, and problem-solving skills which are useful for career development.

Realistic Tips to Kickstart Your Reading Journey

If you are someone who is interested in developing consistent reading habits, here are a few easy tips that can help you start reading.

1. Start Small

Social media has reduced our attention spans to less than a few seconds, so if you are someone who doesn't have the patience to read a few pages, start with a paragraph. It will only take less than a few minutes and even though it doesn't feel like much of a progress, it is something. This way it doesn’t feel like a burden and if you can stay consistent with the same slowly change to reading a page every day and increase according to your progress and comfort.

When you plan to make reading a habit, you might be motivated to read a few chapters every day as a part of your routine. While this is not a bad thing, it can cause burnout if reading has never been a part of your schedule. So it is always better to start small.

2. Start Easy

So many options would be posed to you when you have to decide what to read. This can be confusing, especially for beginners. You will always find “must-read books in a lifetime” when you are searching for the perfect book to start. But what other people find amusing may not be of interest to you. Just because a book is famous, it need not be everyone’s cup of tea. So do not jump directly into classics and literary books if they don’t interest you.

Take books that have less than two hundred pages, with simple language. In my personal opinion, it is preferable to select a book by an author from your country as you might find it more relatable and hence, interesting. In addition to that reading fast-paced mystery thrillers can be more engaging for beginners to remain consistent. If you are not sure which genre you find interesting, read the blurbs of some books and read on if it catches your attention.

It is preferable to start easy because, if you begin your reading journey with classics, it can seem a little slow-paced where the main events of the plot unfold only halfway through the book. Classics have a slightly difficult language for a beginner and most of them deal with political themes that were relevant in the time when they were written. Only a thorough knowledge of the same can make the reader understand the book. But you can start with short and simple classics if you think you can handle it. For example, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott are good for a start.

3. Make a Space in Your Daily Routine to Include Reading.

In today’s busy world, it can be extremely difficult to find some time for your favorite hobby, let alone reading. But there are a few ways you can try. Try to replace it with the time you use for scrolling. This can be impossible for some, but doing it once in a while can also make a difference. Scrolling on your phone for ten minutes doesn’t do any good, so you might as well use that time to read a page from your book.

Reading for a few minutes before going to bed can be easily incorporated into your routine. It will prevent the urge to reach for your phone and scroll for another hour before you finally fall asleep. In addition to that, it helps to reduce stress promoting better sleep.

4. Keep a Reading Journal

Having a journal just for books is one of the ways you can stay consistent while reading. This can be a reading journal specifically or a simple notebook where you can keep track of the books you have read.

You can rate your books, write your opinions and thoughts about them, new vocabulary you've learned, and even highlight your favorite lines from the book. Noting these things will give you a sense of accomplishment after reading books and help you to understand your area of interest. Also, I feel that mentioning the dates when you start and finish your book is important as it will help you comprehend your pace and help track your progress.

A regular update of your reading journal can boost your consistency, will make it easier to recall the contents of your book, and pose a good reference as well.

5. Take a Survey to Find Out Your Favorite Genre

Since we have apps for everything now, you also use one to find good recommendations! This way the app generates book recommendations from your answers and previous reads that can help you fall in love with reading.

Questions related to your emotional connection with books, books that had a great impact on you, etc are considered. It also checks whether your preferences are more plot-driven, character-driven, fast-paced, slow-paced, and many more. Apps like StoryGraph and Goodreads are the ones I would personally recommend.

6. Change the Genre of Your Reads from Time to Time to Avoid Boredom

Even though you may have a set of genres you prefer, it is always better to mix it up. Reading the same genres or books by the same authors back-to-back can also make the experience a little boring. It is common to have a favorite author, but reading all their books at once can cause burnout as they tend to have similar plots and writing styles.

Following this method will help you widen your taste in books. For example, I am personally a fan of literary books with dark themes and Sylvia Plath is one of my favorite authors. But reading such books at a stretch can be a little depressing so I make sure to read a little fantasy or romance books in between to balance it out. So readers can switch genres and types for a better reading experience.

This can be done in different ways according to the interests of the reader. Reading books from around the world, mixing fiction and non-fiction, a blind recommendation or even joining a book club challenge can help with this method.

“If you don't like to read, you haven't found the right book.”- JK Rowling.

7. Talk About It

Giving your opinion about a book you read, positive or negative, increases your chances of developing an interest in reading in the long run. By doing this, you can also form a community of readers, especially beginners( if you are one). Finding people to talk about books, and discussing the themes and elements of the same also helps you understand one book from multiple perspectives.

Read reviews without spoilers and make sure your reviews are also like that. A book review should only have enough content for a reader to know if it is something they would enjoy.

8. Know When to Stop

Knowing when to stop reading a book is as important as reading one. Reading is something you should enjoy and so, the book you are reading should also serve this purpose. There is no rule that you must finish a book you started even though some might feel differently.

Sometimes we realize only halfway through the novel that it is not as engaging as we thought it would be. So instead of forcing yourself to make it to the end the best thing to do is to stop reading. There are so many books to choose from and your entire lifetime is not enough to read all the books in the world. Drop that book if it doesn’t hold your attention; it’s okay.

9. Managing Expenses

Yes, reading is a great hobby and has a lot of benefits but it can be an expensive hobby. Buying all the books you want to read can be hard on your purse and it is not practical. It is better to switch to other means if reading is something you enjoy but cannot seem to afford.

So once you are sure that you have started developing a habit, try mixing your sources like e-books or audiobooks once in a while as these tend to be cheaper than printed copies. Taking membership in a library nearby can also help as it provides additional resources and a better reading atmosphere.

These are some easy methods you can follow if you are planning to start reading more. Following the same can help you build and maintain the habit of reading.

To Conclude...

As a beginner, It might be difficult to stay consistent at first, but all you need to do is follow these simple tips and soon you can also be an ardent reader!

It can seem a little overwhelming to put all these methods to work at first but it is possible. As a regular reader myself, it took me years to get consistent with reading. Still, there are days where I feel burned out from reading. So it is important to understand to take things at your own pace and not to pressure yourself into reading. Remember, it's not the number of books that counts, it's the knowledge and pleasure you gain from them. Happy Reading!

Book Recommendations for Beginners

I'll share both short stories and novels. Go ahead with whatever you feel like. However, start with short stories first if you are unsure.

Short Stories

The O Henry Short Story Collection.

How I taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories by Sudha Murty

Interpreter of Maladies by Jumpa Lahiri

Men without Women by Haruki Murakami

Novels

Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

The Boy in Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

~ By Swetha S Pai