My journey of Reading 100 books in 6 months
UPDATE: Closed out the year with 201 books read.
It started off as a simple idea - to fix my Reddit addiction. I was spending way too much time on Reddit and was addicted to reading before I sleep. So much so that I couldn't sleep unless I had read something and sometimes I wouldn't even realize that I had been reading for hours.
My coach, Sunil Poddar, suggested I replace the habit with something more productive like reading books. There were no goals set at the beginning; I didn't start thinking I was going to read a 100 books (and counting). All I had to do was read one page of a book, any book, instead of switching to Reddit before I sleep. It sounded too simple for it to work but he convinced me to try it for at least 40 days to start with.
I swapped the Reddit app on my homepage with my Kindle app, picked a few books I had wanted to read and got started. The first few days dragged a little, mainly because I didn't enjoy the pace of the books I had chosen and I found myself sneaking towards Reddit. But once I found a few authors I liked, the pull towards Reddit decreased.
At the end of 40 days, I was surprised to see I had read 18 books, averaging about a book in 2 days. That gave me a boost and I decided to aim to read a 100 books by the end of the year. I hit this number by end of June and I am now at 130 books, averaging about 2 books every three days. At an average of 240 pages per book, I'm reading about 160 pages a day.
Here's what worked for me (and hopefully will give you some pointers if you want to build a reading habit too):
1. Read what you are interested in
To start with, pick topics or authors that you already enjoy reading. You want this to be fun, not feel like a punishment. For me, this meant mysteries, true crime, horror, paranormal, self-help, and leadership books. This also helped with my reading speed - most of these books had cliff hangers which made it easy to sneak in 2-3 chapters at a time instead of stopping at one.
You also want to make sure the pace and the tone of the book is right for you. Usually you would know this by the first few pages. For non-fiction, I check book summaries and the Kindle samples to help me decide if I want to download it to my library.
2. Make a watch Read List
One of the reasons we binge is most apps have the next episode on auto-play and there's less friction in continuing to watch vs canceling it. Kindle has a similar feature where it recommends the next book in the series from the same author (or similar books if the author doesn't have other books). This made it easier for me to continue reading since I wasn't spending time trying to find the next book to read.
I also signed up for Kindle Unlimited which not only gave me access to thousands of books but also introduced me to some really cool indie authors that I wouldn't have discovered otherwise. Since I wasn't purchasing these books, I could just return a book that I didn't like instead of trudging through one just because I bought it.
3. Add reading to your schedule
If you want to make it a habit, you need to make time for it in your schedule. For me, this was easy since I was already reading at bedtime and I just used a different app for reading instead. If you are just starting out, schedule a time that you'll use just for reading. It can just be 10 minutes a day to start with and you could increase it as you start enjoying your habit.
Once my addiction switched from Reddit to Kindle, I also started reading during my breaks. I would sneak in a page or two during lunch or while I was waiting for a task to be completed.
4. Multi-task (the right way)
Some books, especially non-fiction books, may take longer to finish since the goal here is to learn something new and not just get to the end of the book. Once I got into the groove of reading, I decided I'll read at least one non-fiction book per week (with the aim of having at least 52 new learnings by the end of the year).
Since I don't want to rush through these, I have more than one book in progress during the week - one the non-fiction book I am focussing on and the other being the fiction I read at bedtime. I tend to read these during breaks or right after work where I can jot down ideas/things to try out.
5. Watch the Streaks, not the Stats
Streaks are addictive! Kindle has this really cool feature called Reading Insights tucked away in its menu that shows the number of books you've read and the number of days/weeks you've read consequently. It even lets you set a reading goal and throws in some celebration confetti when you hit the goal :-D
In the first few months, I missed a couple of days and thanks to the subtle reminders and hints from Kindle, now I've been in the app for a 100+ consecutive days. I usually don't check the number of books I've read as frequently since my goal is to enjoy books and not rush through them. But one of the side effects of this is that my reading speed has increased.
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