{Time management} Why you and I are not reading more books

Make time for reading | www.OrganisingQueen.com

A few weeks ago I read something on a blog that blew my mind –

The average reader can read a book in about 4 and a half hours.

Wow!

I’m a faster than average reader but I’ve never officially had my reading speed checked, so let’s just say I read a book in about 4 hours.

Technically, I should then get through many more books than I currently do (5 – 6 a month).

I took it a step further and asked myself why?

And the answer won’t surprise you – social media, blogs, messing on Instagram. I could easily read blogs for 2 hours a night and scroll instagram for another hour; why not use that time to move toward my goals instead of reading about people I don’t even know?

Make time for reading | www.OrganisingQueen.com

So that weekend I decided to do an experiment – after Sunday lunch, I parked myself on a chair and read a book for about 3 hours. Sure enough I had about 50 pages to go before the book was done.

That night I finished the book.

I did the same the next weekend.

And the next.

Obviously nothing else got done but that’s how I prefer to read a novel – completely immerse myself.

Make time for reading | www.OrganisingQueen.com

So if you’re thinking, “I don’t have enough time to read,” take an afternoon on a weekend, leave your phone and computer far away from you and just read.

My kids played outside, watched some sport with Dion and then did some craftsy things by themselves (I don’t know exactly what because I was reading :)).

By the way, I’ve found the Kindle app on the ipad even more amazing. When you start a book it says, “learning reading speed” and after a while it will tell you, “only 2 hours and 40 minutes to go”.

Tell me – how can any goal-oriented person ignore that? It is DIVINE and I love it!

(it’s also the reason I sometimes stay up too late “I’ll be done in 28 minutes” :))

How do you make time for reading?

PS The last time I wrote about making time for reading I also had a pic of a Sheila O’Flanagan book!

Make time for reading | www.OrganisingQueen.com

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Comments

  1. Terisha says

    I usually read a book a week. I am comfortable with this pace as I also enjoying enjoy scrapbooking a couple nights each week. When the book is very gripping, I usually finish it much quicker. A book a week is also what I budget to spend each month. I see you borrow from the library. I really should do that too.

    • Marcia Francois says

      That’s perfect, Terisha, as it sounds like you have a decent balance of downtime, no matter what you decide to do. I used to spend a FORTUNE on books because I read too fast. And that’s the reason I decided to go back to the library for the fiction, and I have so much non-fiction, I’ll be reading 2 a month for the next 3 – 4 years even if I buy nothing else 😮

  2. I schedule an hour for it every night. I’ve had to significantly reduce computer time – I’m on for 30 minutes a night, and it means that I need to NOT have my phone close by. I try to do a new book every 10 or so days, but some nights are harder to read because I socialise, knit, catch up on home admin and supervise projects etc. For the most part though, I can do an hour per night. I DO read fast and if a book is gripping then I can easily finish it in 2 days or so, but I also tend to read books that have fairly serious subject matter and this often requires a bit of a think before I can proceed.

    • Marcia Francois says

      That is true! If the phone is nearby, it is automatically a huge distraction. LOVE your hour’s reading a night.

Trackbacks

  1. […] Post 2 – why we’re all not reading enough […]

  2. […] It really is very easy to read more books. I read 9 books in April. The key is simply to spend a lot less time on social media and more time with your nose in a book. I used to have the excuse that my phone had to be right next to me so that I could activate “sleep” on the Fitbit app. That was true but they updated the app so when the device syncs to your phone, it picks up the sleep cycles automatically. Now I don’t need my phone with me anymore and this is a good, good thing. Try sleeping and waking up without it and see 🙂 […]

  3. […] I read quite a lot – a little in excess of 5 books a month. I could read more but we’ve already spoken about how we’re all not reading enough. […]

  4. […] Why you and I are not reading more books […]

  5. […] I also want to point out my blog post from a few years ago where I recognised that with the 4 – 5 hours of phone time I have a day, I could easily read a non-fiction book once a week. See why you and I are not reading more books. […]

  6. […] can get through at least one non-fiction book a month. This is true… using just 20 minutes a day. We are all scrolling Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. for way more time than that – why not take just 20 mins, set your timer and read something to stimulate your […]

  7. […] phone usage at the time was abysmal. And, as I’ve said before, we could all literally finish a book every four and a half hours if our phone usage was […]

Leave a Reply to Marcia Francois Cancel reply

*

WP2Social Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com