Four years ago (nearly to the day!), I published a post where I talked about my reading habits. For a week, I logged my time to give a summary of exactly how I make time for reading. Some interesting findings from that post:
- Most of my reading was done in short bursts of time of 15 minutes or less (57%)
- The longest amount of time I spent reading was 45 minutes
- I read before work every single day (usually just a few pages), but that’s something I don’t do anymore.
I’ve always wanted to do a follow-up post about my reading habits and see how things have changed, so last week, I logged my reading time again. I just had no idea that I picked the exact same week as before. (How does that even happen?!)
Let’s look at how I’m making time for reading in 2018!
Monday, September 10
- 35 minutes: reading during my lunch break
- 27 minutes: commuting home (audiobook)
- 12 minutes: puttering around (audiobook)
- 28 minutes: reading before bed
Total time reading: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Tuesday, September 11
- 26 minutes: reading during my lunch break
- 18 minutes: reading during my bubble bath
- 17 minutes: reading before bed
Total time reading: 1 hour, 1 minute
Wednesday, September 12
- 28 minutes: reading during my lunch break
- 14 minutes: reading during my bubble bath
- 27 minutes: reading before bed
Total time reading: 1 hour, 9 minutes
Thursday, September 13
- 19 minutes: reading during my lunch break
- 13 minutes: reading during my bubble bath
- 23 minutes: reading while puttering around
- 9 minutes: reading before bed
Total time read: 1 hour, 4 minutes
Friday, September 14
- 10 minutes: reading before a nap
- 45 minutes: reading while puttering around
- 24 minutes: reading before bed
Total time read: 1 hour, 19 minutes
Saturday, September 15
- 12 minutes: reading after waking up
- 12 minutes: reading before a nap
- 9 minutes: reading when I woke up from the nap
- 23 minutes: reading while puttering around
- 1 hour: reading before bed
Total time read: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Sunday, September 16
- 23 minutes: reading after waking up
- 32 minutes: reading while puttering around (part-audiobook)
- 15 minutes: driving (audiobook)
- 1 hour, 45 minutes: reading while watching football
- 19 minutes: reading before bed
Total time read: 3 hours, 14 minutes
Total time read for the week: 11 hours, 25 minutes
***
Ah, it’s so interesting to see my reading time laid out in a weekly format like this. It shows how much time I spend reading. Even on my busiest days, I still put in an hour of reading time (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday) and every day ended with me reading in bed, even if it was only for a few minutes (Thursday). I read every day on my lunch break, which is probably my favorite part of every day. I used to go outside to a bench that’s under some trees, but it’s just too hot to be outside for more than a few minutes at this time of year. So I’ve started going to my car, pushing back the seat, and stretching out. I turn on the engine so I can have the cold air blasting on me and sit in complete silence, and it. is. divine.
I wasn’t sure what to call the category I named, “puttering around,” but this is how I tend to get things done while still working in copious amounts of reading time. I’ll sit down with my book and let myself read 1-2 chapters or 10 or so pages (depending on how long the chapters are), and then I’ll get up and do something. Maybe I’ll take care of a chore or spend some time working on a blog post, but whenever I finish the task or I need a break, I’ll come back to my book. And repeat, repeat, repeat.
I’m still reading in short bursts of 15 minutes or less, but definitely not at the same rate I was four years ago. I broke my times down into four categories: 15 minutes or less, 15-30 minutes, 30-45 minutes, and 45 minutes or longer. The second category, 15-30 minutes, came out on top at 48%. 15 minutes or less followed at 33%. The last two categories account for the remaining 19%.
I didn’t calculate the number of pages I read during each reading period, but I finished an audiobook (I only had an hour left on it, though) and read a 350-page book, along with making progress on the other books I’m reading (Come as You Are, Taking Fire, and Persuasion). I’m usually not reading this many books at once, but it happens every now and then.
But there you have it! That’s how I make time for reading on a daily basis. I have the freedom to do so, but it’s also something I choose to do. I could be doing other things with my free time, like binge-watching shows on Netflix or playing games on my phone, but I choose to read more often than not. It’s what I make time for every single day, usually for an hour or more. And I have zero regrets about that!
How do you make time for reading?
I should track my reading time and see how much time I spend reading. As you know, I was worried I would read way less after having a baby and was told by another mom to maybe set a lower goal for my goodreads challenge. But it turns out I still make time for reading. I think I always will. There are things that I let slide – like cleaning our house. Ha. I mean, our house gets cleaned, just not as often as it would if I didn’t make reading such a priority. I have a bus commute to/from work so I sometimes read on that but a lot of time I listen to a podcast because I am too tired to really focus on a book lately. So most of my reading happens when I pump and before I go to bed. I try to set aside 30-45 minutes to read before bed and sometimes I read for an hour+, especially if I’m reading a really good book. Most of my reading happens on the kindle ap on my phone but as Paul gets older and is more aware of what we are doing, I want to shift more of my reading back to physical books so that he sees me reading. Phil only reads physical books as he’s just not an ereader or phone reader. So some day Paul will see both of us reading books which is important, I think. But it’s just so much harder to read physical books that ebooks so for now I’m going the easy/convenient route!
Yes, yes, yes! I truly believe that you make time for the things you love, and you are definitely proof of that. It’s so easy to get sucked into doing other things (like that neverending scroll on our phones!) but I honestly am not myself when I’m not reading, and reading a lot, so I definitely let things fall to the wayside so I can do it.
This is inspirational! I always think of reading as spending like an hour or something non-stop reading for it to “count” or something. I have no idea where I got that idea and so I always feel silly when I pick up a book and read a chapter and put the book down. So then I think that I don’t really have “the time” but I probably do if I did it in like little spurts!
Absolutely you do! I’m really not someone who can sit for an hour and read, unless the book is really, really hard to put down or I’m nearing the end and want to finish it, so I do a LOT of my reading in short spurts.
How do you decide what to listen to on audiobook? I find that I’m much pickier about them because I can love or hate them dependent entirely on the narrator… so I tend to avoid them entirely, which is dumb & keeps me fropm lots of potential “puttering around” reading!
Your comment sparked an entire post idea in me, so I’m going to talk about how I listen to audiobooks soon, but as how I pick them, honestly, it’s not that exciting. I just go down my Goodreads Want-to-Read list and find a book that’s available for immediate download on Overdrive. At this point, I’m pretty good at figuring out what books I can do on audio (no dystopian or world-building, no dense nonfiction) and I’ve been having pretty good luck with narrators lately. But the narrator can DEFINITELY make or break the audiobook experience!
Reading in small time increments is such a great idea! I enjoy reading when I find a great book but I have the hardest time with attention span and sitting still, so maybe this is my answer. Sometimes, good books take a while to get into and I’ve had to abandon so many potentially good ones because I just can’t force my mind and body to just stick to one thing. Thanks for this post!! I will put this into practice starting tonight.
Reading in small time increments is such a great idea! I enjoy reading when I find a great book but I have the hardest time with attention span and sitting still, so maybe this is my answer. Sometimes, good books take a while to get into and I’ve had to abandon so many potentially good ones because I just can’t force my mind and body to just stick to one thing. Thanks for this post!! I will put this into practice starting tonight.
I hope it works well for you! I’m the same way with my attention span and generally do a lot of my reading in short spurts because it’s hard for me to focus on a book for a long period of time, especially if it’s a book that is taking a while to get into.
Work has been slow this month so I find I have been reading a lot more like this – in little bits and pieces through the day. I’ve also just started reading more than one book at once – for a long time I was very much a person who would just stick to one book at a time, which makes sense in theory…until you get…readers block? Is that a thing? Haha. Anyway, I have found making these changes has had a big impact on my reading. That, and adding audiobooks to the mix.
Love this post and also loved the one about how you organize your reading. Now that I am wading into the world of reading more than one book at a time, I think I may adopt some of the strategies you use to keep your reading organized!
Ah, yes, I love reading more than one book at a time! It helps me get through more dense or heavy reads because it’s hard for me to read those straight through – much easier to balance the heaviness with something lighter!
I also tend to read on my lunch break, usually 3 or 4 times by week. And I read on the weekend!
Lunch break reading is the best! It’s such a great way to break up the work day.
Love this post! I am definitely planning to read during breaks when I go back to work. I am going to a job where I am part of the union and so I get two 15 minute breaks a day and one of my new coworkers was like “make sure you take them!!” so I’m hoping to use those to read. I may have to use at least 1 a day to actually socialize with my new coworkers 😉 I also read every night before bed, sometimes only for 10 mins but often for 15-30 mins!
That’s nice to be “forced” to take two 15-minute breaks every day! I’d definitely try to use one of them to sneak in some reading – you could at least get a chapter done in that time!
Oh, that was super-interesting. I used to feel that I need to have at least an hour or so of downtime to pick up my book, but ever since I started reading on my Amazon Fire (which syncs with my Kindle app on my phone), I’ve been getting much better at using a few minutes here and there when I am on the go to get some pages in.
Thanks for sharing your ‘reading schedule’.
I’m really glad you no longer feel like you need to have an hour or more to set aside to read! I love reading in bits and pieces more than I love reading for an hour or longer. I just don’t have the focus to sit still for that long!