Building the Habit of Reading Books: Course of Action
Instagram saw it first. I’ve practically shared this on my personal Instagram account @feliciaamelinda but questions from my friends regarding ‘how can I regularly read books’ some time ago triggered me to explain it more comprehensively on this platform.
You might be able to follow some of the tips below for those of you who just want to build the habit of reading books but don’t know where to start. I share these based on my experience.
So, how can I build the habit of reading books?
1. Change Your Mindset about Reading
Make reading books as a necessity for you like you need to eat every day. Instill in yourself the “I need to read” mindset. This mindset will also affect your commitment to reading books when you feel like you are in a reading slump or are in a lazy-and-not-in-my-mood-to-read mode.
2. Start with a Book That You Interest
You can start from the genre of book you like. It can be fiction or nonfiction. If you don’t know where to start, I recommend you to read fiction since it has a plot that can drive up your imaginations or usually people start from comics or graphic novels since they have an attractive visual appearance. Also, sometimes comics or graphic novels are not too thick as well. However, you can also start from nonfiction. Basically, whatever genre of book you are interested in.
3. Set Goals
In my opinion, setting goals is quite important so that we have an idea and know our targets in reading, both in terms of quantity (number of pages or books to be read) and quality (what do you want to get from reading the book?)
In terms of quantity, I personally set my goal of at least 20 pages minimum per day for fiction and 10 pages per day if I was reading a nonfiction that time. It would be better if I could read more than that.
Why is it different? In my opinion, reading nonfiction requires more time to understand than fiction ones. It will be more meaningful if we understand the content rather than chasing time and pages (in the case of reading non-fiction books) because non-fiction contains new knowledge which is usually packaged in more formal explanations than fiction.
And in practice, it actually takes me longer to read non-fiction than fiction.
Or also it depends on the number of pages of the book. Let’s say one book has 200 pages and I try to finish within a week, which means I have to read at least 28 pages per day. I can read it when I wake up, before go to sleep, between work, or whenever there is an opportunity to read a book.
In terms of quality, I usually aim to at least remember and understand 3 contents or important points from the book seeing that it cannot be denied, we will definitely have a little difficulty remembering the contents of the whole book in the midst of busyness and other activities that we do in this world.
You can also set goals according to your abilities and desires!
4. Get Some Motivations
One thing that needs to be highlighted is that motivation is sought, not waiting for it to come. This applies in any context, not just reading books.
Before you start reading, try to reflect again on what motivates you to read a book? “to keep my brain filled so that to widen my knowledge”, “to train my empathy”, “to reduce screening time”, “just to kill my leisure time when I’m bored”, any motivations are valid!
The previous point regarding setting goals is related to this point. If you have set your goals, you will tend to achieve them more easily because you already have an idea of what you want to achieve. If we have a goal or target, we will have ambition, and the passion will follow. Whether we realize it or not, that is motivation.
5. Always Keep The Book in Your Sight
Personally, I always try to carry my book wherever I go. Whether when I work, hangout with my friends, when I’m on public transportation, traveling, when I’m on board, even to bed sometimes I have my book next to me. The point is, keep the book close to you and always in your sight. It makes us remember the book.
Even though it doesn’t guarantee that we will read the book that is close to us, at least you have a higher chance of reading the book than if you put the book somewhere else. So there’s no longer the excuse “the book is too far away to pick up”.
This point may also give you a little more effort if you are traveling with a small bag, or the book you are carrying is as thick as a cumulonimbus in the sky. But it’s all just about mechanisms. There is a technology nowadays that has advanced greatly by creating things called Kindles or e-books which are more efficient. So, what are our intentions?
6. Replace Gadget with Books
The hardest thing to do but you’ll feel satisfied if you can get through this!
Indeed, nowadays it is very difficult to remove gadgets even just one second from our hands. Everything needs to be done via gadgets. But thinking about it again, aren’t you tired of looking at gadgets all day long?
Reading books can be a way to take a short break from gadgets without making you out of style.
Try to switch and allocate your time, which is usually for scrolling, to read a book. Try this slowly but sure. I admit this was quite difficult at first, because gadgets are meant to make us addicted. But once you manage to overcome your desire to scroll your phone by reading a book, you will become satisfied with it (based on my own experience).
7. Keep Yourself Away from All Things That Can Distract You
Gadget, especially my cellphone, is quite often a distraction when I read books.
My enormous strategy is by putting my phone away from the place I read, sometimes I even put it in another room like I put my phone in my parents room and I read at my crib.
I also often placed my phone in the same room as me. For example, I read on my desk and put my phone on the bed, or vice versa. But it is just that sometimes I still like to be distracted by the vibration of my phone or sometimes I still like to make excuses to myself for stealing moments to open my phone in the middle of reading, which makes it ineffective because I don’t focus to the fullest.
So it is best for me to keep my phone as far away as possible. Coincidentally, my room is on the upstairs and my parents’ room is on the downstairs, which makes me lazy to go back and forth to check it.
Everyone may have different distractions. Probably someone’s distraction is not a cell phone like mine. So, what are your strategies for minimizing things that can distract you from reading books?
8. Be Happy with Reading!
Last but not least, all tips I’ve shared above won’t work if you yourself do not feel content and enjoy reading books owing to the fact that the art of reading is when you feel comfortable, secure, enjoy, content, and fulfilled with it.
So, it is all merely about mechanisms. The most important thing is when you, your feelings, your soul, feel fulfilled when you read books and the books give you a pleasant impression.
That’s it! Hopefully it can help those of you who want to start to build reading habits. Feel free to discuss and crave for new insight on each other.
Reach me out on IG @feliciaamelinda cause I’ll be open and feel honored to talk to you guys!
