Five Suggestions to Help us Find Time to Read

How can we find time to read when we live in such a busy world? Steph Nickel has 5 suggestions that she believes will help us enjoy this wonderful hobby.

How do you find time to read? Tell us about what your suggestions are. Comment below or contact us at HopeStreamRadio.

Find Time to Read

I won’t be able to review a new book this week for many reasons, among them the fact that I’m doing a rush proofread of a manuscript that I received three days before the deadline. (No one strong-armed me into taking the job. I just figured I didn’t need sleep this week. However, my body told me differently when I fell asleep on the couch around 8:00 last night and slept through until almost 5:00 this morning.)

And before you think, “So what?” and scroll to the next blog post, I’ll get to it.

Today, let’s discuss how to find time to read, even when life is a little crazy—or a whole lot crazy.

While I’m not able to share a review of the book I’m currently proofreading, I can tell you I’m enjoying it immensely. That’s definitely one of the perks of the job. That and the fact that it’s a very “clean copy” and I have to make minimal suggestions along the way.

It’s easier to make time to read if doing so is your fulltime job. However, if, like me, it isn’t, you have to squeeze it in.

Suggestion #1

While I do read after I crawl into bed—those nights I don’t flame out on the couch that is—sometimes it’s hard to focus when I keep drifting off. For many people, however, this is one of the best times to schedule their reading.

Suggestion #2

That leads to Suggestion #2, scheduling reading time. You may want to get up a little earlier and read before you head off into your day. You may want to take 15-30 minutes at lunch to read. Or, like one family I met, you may want to set aside some time each week and declare it Family Reading Time.

The youngest members of the family were allowed to play quietly in their rooms if they wanted, but the expectation was that everyone would take this time to read as soon as they were old enough to do so. (This, of course, would be more difficult to implement if your children didn’t get used to the routine early in life.)

Suggestion #3

Squeezing reading into the margins of life works for some people.

“Margins?” you say. “What margins?”

How about pulling out your book or opening the Kindle app on your phone when you’re parked outside your kids’ school at the end of the school day. (Get to know your community’s laws against doing so when operating a vehicle and what that means specifically. Reading is valuable but maybe not worth the cost of fine.)

You can also read when waiting in a long line at the grocery store or while waiting to see the doctor or dentist. (That book you’ve been wanting to read is likely a better option than the outdated magazines you’ll typically find in their offices—or scrolling through Facebook.)

How about reading instead of watching that next episode of your favourite Netflix series?

And that leads to Suggestion #4, prioritizing reading.

Suggestion #4

If we want to add more reading time to our schedule, it just may mean that we have to set aside some other pursuits.

First, you may want to keep track of how you spend your time for a couple of days, maybe even a week. You may be surprised to find you do have more time to read than you thought—or you may realize there are some things you could set aside to make reading a higher priority.

Now, I’m not suggesting you slack off at work or allow reading to impinge on your family time, but there may be some things you can leave off your schedule or reschedule for another time.

Only you can determine what you’re willing to set aside to make reading a higher priority.

And now, the last suggestion.

Suggestion #5

I have learned to love audiobooks. In this way, we can “read” while doing other tasks that don’t require 100 percent of our attention.

If you’ve gotten this far, you likely enjoy reading or at least believe it’s important to spend more time doing so. But in case you’re not convinced that reading is important, you’ll want to listen in a couple of weeks when I explore the benefits of reading both nonfiction and fiction.

How do you squeeze reading into your already overflowing schedule? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Happy Reading!

How do you find time to read? Tell us about what your suggestions are. Comment below or contact us at HopeStreamRadio.