It’s July 2016 and I have man­aged to read 18 books so far this year; this is a record high for me.  I have always enjoyed read­ing, but could nev­er seem to find the time to do it con­sis­tent­ly.  I’d binge-read over a hol­i­day or qui­et week­end and sit for hours at a time.  This was not a very prac­ti­cal strat­e­gy.  Unless you’re retired, do not have chil­dren to care for, bills to pay or you hap­pen to read for a liv­ing, you just won’t have the time to read for hours at a time.

I do have some good news for all my clos­et-book­worms and book enthu­si­asts.  I have some awe­some tips on how you can read more often, retain the infor­ma­tion you’re reading–thus get more value–and become a con­sis­tent read­er.

Sound inter­est­ing?  I’m excit­ed, too!  Let’s go.

Set Goals: Have a goal in mind for each book, arti­cle or doc­u­ment you’re read­ing

When you engage in any activ­i­ty what­so­ev­er, make sure you keep in mind what you’re hop­ing to get out of it.  This is real­ly sig­nif­i­cant, so please do not skip this part.

Let’s dis­cuss your read­ing goals.  I love goals, don’t you?

You picked up a book.  Fan­tas­tic.  What is your goal?  Why are you read­ing this love­ly pub­li­ca­tion?

For me, I read because I like to learn.  I do enjoy a fic­tion­al nov­el every once in a while, but for the most part, I read because I some­how want to be inspired to take some sort of action.   I just fin­ished read­ing, The 12 Week Year.  If you’re obsessed with extreme pro­duc­tiv­i­ty like I am, then this is the book for you!

I am also a writer and blog­ger, so I need to stay on top of the top­ics I both enjoy and write about.  I aspire to one day be a Thought Leader in my indus­try so I tend to read quite a bit about dis­ci­pline, effi­cien­cy, man­age­ment, and lead­er­ship.

So why are you read­ing this par­tic­u­lar book?  Keep in mind all the rea­sons as to why you’re read­ing some­thing, any­thing, even this post. Cool?  Great, let’s move on.

Rou­tines & Rit­u­als:  Pick a time when you can do this every day with­out inter­rup­tions

I love rou­tines.  I love min­i­miz­ing the mun­dane aspects of life.  They free up my time and help me to focus on the good stuff.  Not too long ago I wrote a blog post about rit­u­als and why we should all have them.  If you haven’t read it, make sure to check it out.

For this les­son, I want you to pick a time when you can read. When does the baby nap? When are the kids in school? When are you in your pub­lic com­mute, i.e, the train, bus, plane?  Do not read and dri­ve!  I’ve seen this before and I want to throw some­thing at the dri­ver; not sure if it’s because I’m jeal­ous that she’s read­ing and I’m not, or because I’m scared for my safe­ty!  Either way, don’t do it.

Set the timer for 15 min­utes 

Do not attempt to set the timer for longer than 15 min­utes if you have not devel­oped the dis­ci­pline to stick to read­ing.  Remem­ber, short and steady dai­ly actions will com­pound and will get you to your goal much faster than read­ing every few days for longer peri­ods of time.  I learned this in Dar­ren Hardy’s, The Com­pound Effect.  Books are awe­some teach­ers!  All these authors have been men­tor­ing me through their books and I’m so grate­ful to them.

Okay, so set your timer.  Your smart­phone should work just fine. I usu­al­ly turn my iPhone upside down and focus only on the task at hand–>my book.

Read until the alarm goes off.  The key is to do this with com­plete and utter focus.  If you have not trained your mind to focus, it will start to wan­der.  So for now, stick to 15 min­utes; I’d even go as far as break­ing these 15 min­utes into two ses­sions so that you can achieve the ulti­mate focus.  Okay, so once your alarm goes off, you, my friend are done for the day.

Was­n’t this easy?  It real­ly is this easy.  The key is to take dai­ly action.

“The great­est pre­dic­tor of your future are your dai­ly actions.”

The Pur­pose of Read­ing

The pur­pose of read­ing should be to learn some­thing new, to be inspired to take action, or sim­ply to get enjoy­ment out of this won­der­ful pas­time.

Please do not read just to get through the pages.  What’s the point in that?  I know I’m repeat­ing myself, but please, have a goal in mind. What are you hop­ing to accom­plish by read­ing this book, blog post or arti­cle?

This is why I have asked you to set your timer to no more than 15 minutes–I don’t want you to get too focused on how many pages you’re get­ting through.  The goal is to get val­ue, and not all books will be win­ners. But if you take away, even just one thing from a book, that’s suc­cess to me.  Focus­ing on your rea­son for read­ing will help you retain the infor­ma­tion you have learned.

I will show you how to read more effi­cient­ly once you have devel­oped the habit of read­ing 15 min­utes per day.  If you can­not find 15 min­utes in one set­ting, break them down into 3 dif­fer­ent ses­sions of 5 min­utes each.

I know this may sound sil­ly, but trust me when I tell you that you will devel­op the dis­ci­pline, and form healthy, pro­duc­tive habits if you take small actions every sin­gle day, no mat­ter what is hap­pen­ing around you.

Com­ing Up

Okay, we’re going to set 15 min­utes aside each day for 4 weeks–this includes week­ends and hol­i­days.  If for some rea­son you can’t find 15 min­utes in your day, read for 5. The goal is to read each day.  On the next relat­ed post, I will show you how to increase your read­ing effi­cien­cy.  So stay tuned.  And hap­py read­ing!