Read as Many Books as You Want with This One Tip

I know the title could seem too could to be true and I know that this reading tip can seem too simple to be effective but I assure you if you do it right -I'll show you how- it's a game changer!!

What is this magic tip?

It's dividing the number of pages your book has by the number of days you want to read it in.

Example: I have a book that's 289 pages long and I want to finish it in a 30 day month. What I do is divide 289/30= 9.6 pages...I round that up to 10.

And that's what I have to read every day, only 10 pages!!

Every time we sit down to read without a number of pages set to read, it almost feels like we have this whole book to read in this one sitting. And when we get up after even an hour of reading we look at it and we hardly feel a sense of accomplishment because we see all the rest of the book left for us to get through.

But with this trick, we can get up after every reading session feeling a sense of achievement as we finished the small number of pages we planned to read.

BUT...and this is super important -right way to do it - part I was talking about

If I look at that number of pages and it feels too hard to maintain, then I will NOT stick to it, and I resolve to read that book in more days than I originally planned, like maybe instead of 30, it could be 45 or even 60 days.

Till the number of pages I have to read daily becomes so low that I feel it is something I can achieve EASILY, again, everyday. And that's the key word here people, easily!

Why?

Let me explain with a story.

I'm currently reading (as of writing this blog post) The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest and it's 239 pages long.

I started it in the first week of October and wanted to finish it by the end of it. I had less than 30 days and when I did my calculations I had to finish 11 pages of it every day to be done by 31st of October.

I had just finished The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and it was a pretty easy book for me to consume and also because it was only 140 something pages, I went through it pretty quickly, reading more than 10 days on the daily with ease.

So, I thought I could keep up the same pace with The Mountain is You.

I was wrong.

Because the 11 pages felt heavy and too much for me to do (a feeling which my pride refused me to accept) I found myself avoiding the book all together for a few days. Not even picking it up or reading even 1 or 2 pages. Because deep down the task of finishing 11 pages of this particularly not-an-easy-going-beach-read-type book was too much for me.

And so, I sat down with my ego and we had a discussion about how my WHY behind reading in the first place is just to learn more about life, and I can't do that if I'm not reading. So it doesn't matter if I finish this book before November of this year or the next, I just want to read it.

After some back and force (and an ice-cream bribe,) I convinced my ego that we could extend it to a full 45 days which meant I only had to read 5 pages of it everyday and that my friends felt so much easier.

So much so that I actually now read more than 10 pages of this books WITH EASE every day!!

What? How? Whyyy?

I wish I could say I was shocked but I knew this would happen 🤦🏻‍♀️

(and I still didn't do it at first, humans man, we're so weird haha)

But I knew it would be easier because starting it didn't seem like such a daunting task.I knew all I had to do for the day was read 5 pages and I'm done (and the 5 pages felt easy for me for this book.) But because I would get really into it, I'd end up reading more, and because I got that jolt of dopamine (reward hormone) from reading the first 5 pages, it would push me to want to read more.

Just like James Clear says in his Atomic Habits book (review coming soon), you have to make the habit you want to start as small as possible, he called it the 2min rule. Just spend 2 mins doing that habit and you're done. If you want to go further than 2mins you can, but you'll feel great knowing that you're already done with the habit and now you're doing even more!!

And that's how you make a habit stick, you tie it to a comfortable emotion you get out of doing the habit, it's almost like a reward in of itself!

Other Tips to Help You Stick to Your Reading Habit:

• Habit Stack It: Link reading to another habit you already do everyday, like making tea/coffee/matcha for instance.

• Give Yourself a Reward: Every new habit should end immediately with a reward. Pick something you don't usually give yourself. So your brain eventually ties your habit to the good feeling you'll get after you get the reward. Do this until doing the habit and the benefits you get out of it become the reward itself.

• Set Up a Reading Spot: Try to find somewhere you'll do your reading comfortably, so when you sit there, it feels natural for you to be with your book instead of on your phone for example.

Bottom Line

You have to make the number of pages you read daily be as low as you can do comfortably, even if you're just starting to read more books and that number is 1 page.

Also, try not to be too hard on yourself when you can't read everyday...the beauty of making the number so low is that somedays you'll read more which will help cover for days where you won't read at all, so it all balances itself out

Even if you end up finishing it in 35 days instead of 30, the whole point was for you to finish the book, not race to that finish line!! Just think, if you hadn't done this, those 35 days would have passed you (like so many others, it's happened to us all) and you're still trying to get yourself to start the book.

We've all been there, but with this trick, I plan to never go there again!