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Simplifying Reading

One of the things I have struggled with for years is how to get my reading under control. I have a tendency to start many books and if I don’t forget about them altogether, I will lose track of where I am before I get back to where I need to be. This leads to a tremendous amount of re-reading, and a complete lack of retention of what I have read due to no review time. I also found myself reading books I detested just to see if it would miraculously get better by the end.

So what can be done to simplify reading time?

Don’t Be Afraid To Stop Reading

Not everything is worth reading. There is a limited amount of time I have for reading, and I will not waste it on trash. I decided that if a book doesn’t really grab me within 100 pages, I won’t finish it.

And after a recent experience where two books by a favorite author descended into nothing more than cleaned up skeleton notes by the last few chapters, I decided that if a book really gets bad, it’s time to dump it, right then.

Limit What You Read

I can’t keep reading multiple books at the same time. To do so means that my attention is divided and I do justice to no book. Ideally it would be that I only have one book going at a time. However, I will not read my non-fiction book readily.

Priming the Pump

For me I need to have one non-fiction and one fiction book going at the same time. I prime the pump of reading by giving myself 15 minutes of fiction reading, at which point I have to stop and read at least 15 minutes of non-fiction.

Summary

The best way for me to simplify my reading is to allow myself to abandon that which doesn’t hold my attention, limit how much I read at one time, and prime myself by reading fiction first, then non-fiction.

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