10 Tips to Read More This Coming Year

Simple Strategies to Stretch the Marginal Time We All Have to Read More This Year than Last

Almost two decades ago now I was an editor at a publishing house and on the phone with one of my authors. I mentioned tearing through several novels (Cormac McCarthy, Mario Vargas Llosa, and some Walker Percy, as it happens) and offhandedly gave the number I’d read during my spree. He was encouraging but unimpressed.

Fifty books a year was the norm for him. At my then-current pace, the best I could hope for was a sum in the low thirties.

The next year I started tracking every book I finished. As a writer and editor, I’m in and out of far more books than I actually read cover to cover. I wanted to know how many I had actually completed. After twelve months, I finished thirty-five. How on earth did my author friend hit fifty books a year?

Photo via Darwin Vegher

It seemed impossible given my job, family, social obligations, and other claims on my time. But I kept at it, and the number rose the next year. And the next. And the next. Nowadays I typically read eighty or more books a year—on top of the countless books I browse, scan, or quit.

I know some people read far more. Last year I actually read 114, 112 when I reported my year-end total and a couple more before the ball dropped. (It’s worth qualifying, some of those were pretty short.) Regardless, I thought I’d share how I do it, more or less. Whatever your reading aims, these tips can probably help you finish more books this year than last if that’s what you want to do. No pressure if you don’t. Different strokes, etc.

1. Set a goal. Seems simple—and it is. My team at Full Focus teaches goal achievement for several reasons, but the most straightforward? They tend to work. When we set an intention, we begin changing our behavior to match. The rest of items in this list will help, but you might find a goal gets you going in the right direction. One caution: Don’t get crazy. If you read twenty or thirty books a year now, think about incremental gains. You can always revise the goal upward later if you want.

2. Keep track. Once you’ve got a goal, it helps to track your progress. Even without a goal, just keeping a simple list of what you’ve read is beneficial. When my list of completed titles is short, I want to read more; when it’s long, I feel excitement and want to make it longer. I also get a charge when I survey my list and recall what I’ve learned or felt in my reading over the past several months. More, please.

3. Switch formats. I love physical books. I also love audiobooks and tolerate ebooks. But I’m happy to switch between all three to finish a book, especially paper and audio. I’ll listen while I drive and then find my place in my copy on my nightstand later that evening. 

4. Cut back on TV. There’s so much great television being produced these days. But there are only 8,760 hours in a year. Deduct for sleep, work, family, dining, and driving and then ask: Do I really want to binge watch that new series? No judgment if the answer’s yes—it’s probably great—but opportunity costs are real. I can’t read and view at the same time. I bet you can’t either.

5. Take books everywhere. I always have a book with me: sometimes one or more physical books and several dozen audio and digital a few taps away on my phone. If I’m waiting, I’m reading. If I’m walking, I’m reading. Every week there are minutes that come to hours of unclaimed time at the margins. I can use it to stare at my shoes—or read three more pages in my book. Shoes are nice; books are better.

6. Follow your whims. In his book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs expresses his “commitment to one dominant, overarching, nearly definitive principle for reading: Read at Whim.” This has served me well. I let my tastes, curiosity, and passions steer my eyes. That way I read more of what I love—with the bonus that I also love more of what I read.

7. Vary your genres. Part of following my whims is reading across several genres. Even during times I’ve narrowed my focus, I try to let random titles land on my list. If I’m digesting a lot of history, a zany novel might be called for. If I’ve spent months cornering one subject, I try to find something utterly different to break it up.

8. Read several books at once. I don’t mean simultaneously. That’s impossible (though I do hope they figure it out someday). I mean that I have several books going at any given time: two or three novels at various stages, a history book, and maybe a bio or business book, or something spiritual. With that much variety, I’m always in the mood to read at least one in the stack.

9. Seek suggestions. Social media can gobble up all the free, marginal minutes in the day, but I do love social media for reading suggestions. Same with podcasts. I’m great at finding new books, but I love hearing what my friends, coworkers, mentors, and others are reading. There are hundreds of thousands of books published every year. There’s simply no way for an individual to know all the best books on any particular topic.

10. Quit at any time. Over the years I’ve heard several people say they stopped reading for a while because they just couldn’t finish a particular book. It was boring, bad, whatever. That’s like saying you stopped eating because you don’t like meatloaf. Drop it in the trash and try tacos. Or salmon. Or curry. Or something! There are a million books available, at least some of which are better than whatever you can’t finish.

No. 10 is more than a strategy. It’s a way of life: I’ll quit any book at any time. Life’s too short to soldier through an uninteresting book. And there’s no way I’ll let one stop me from reading a dozen more-likable volumes.

So how many books are you planning on reading this year? My guess is you’re capable of more than you think. Consider that the average book is about 65,000 words long, and a typical reader can cover about 250 words a minute. At that rate, you could finish in just over four and half hours—give or take a few trips to the restroom or brewing coffee.

If you read thirty minutes each day, that’s three to four books a month, maybe forty or more in a year. Reclaim a few extra minutes here and there throughout the day and it’s easier to accomplish than you might think. And who knows? Watch that list grow and you’ll probably be motivated to read even more. Whatever the right number is for you, there’s more than enough time this year to reach it.

What about your own reading tips? If you’ve got any you’d like to share, please leave them below in the comments.

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