Reading. Writing. Learning. Taking long walks. Cardio or body weight exercises. Cooking. Working on creative projects. Looking back at the last decade, these are some of the routines that have kept me feeling alive. Last year, my reading really fell off. It’s one of the routines I want to recover and reinforce this year, so I’ve been thinking through practical steps to rebuild my reading habit.
Outside the pandemic when I had a long reading list and only a few competing things to do in that time, most of my adulthood reading has happened during commutes, which was easy enough. Since I liked reading all I needed was to have a book I wanted to read on me, and I’d read when bored with nothing else as interesting to do.
Since I have no commute, and not as much free time I recognize the need to make time for reading and actually schedule that time into my daily routine.
Something that’s worked for routines and habits is scheduling them in to my calendar, that way I get a prompt at that time to either do it or feel guilty for not doing it. After reflecting, I’ve gone a step further to add agendas to those reminders, so I know what exactly is the minimum I should do.
Looking back at last year’s reading list, a lot of those books weren’t really inspiring; there was nothing about them that felt like they could change my thinking fundamentally. They were just on there to populate the list so it’s no wonder that I didn’t read as much. This year, there are books in view that I’m way more excited to complete so hopefully that bit’s solved. Here’s to a better reading year.