I've heard that a lot from family and friends. I've caught myself thinking it as well, when things get busy - how can I dedicate myself to sitting down and doing something as mentally engaging and (dare I say it?) unproductive as reading a book?
I have to go to work, do chores around the house, make sure my child is doing alright, watch a movie, play video games, and --
Oh. Wait a second. Something strikes me as odd about that list.
Gosh, I'd love to sit down and read, but I'm too busy looking for my glasses.
I think it's easy for us to forget that reading is easily swapped in for more passive forms of entertainment. I've also noticed that a lot of folks put a certain amount of normative weight - that is, an expectation of something they should be doing - on what is for many a source of fun and relaxation.
If you feel don't have time to read, think about why that may be. Do you find the idea of reading an entire book to be a bit overwhelming? Have you been reading a lot of technical or difficult material for work or school? Are you currently invested in beating a video game, watching the next episode of a series, or checking social media?
Reading isn't something I like to encourage people to do because they should be reading, or because it's somehow "better" than other forms of entertainment. I like to encourage people to read because it's an imaginative experience, an informative experience, and a fun experience.
Of course, like any other kind of fun, different styles of books and different reading paces work better for different people.
If you're like me, and you tend to look at the big picture, and like to finish things in one go, you might look at a large book and say, "There's no way I can read that whole thing right now! I should wait to start until I have time!" I often feel like if I break a story into smaller chunks, it'll break my immersion, or I won't remember what happened as clearly.
However, I've recently started reading a chapter book with my eight-year-old every night, and we can easily get through one or two chapters before bed, and pick it up the next night. Sometimes we even skip a night, if it's someone else's turn to read a different book - but we always pick up right where we left off, and the details come right back to us.
And so for me, the only hard and fast rule now is to avoid reading when I can't fully focus on it. Reading on the bus has never worked for me, because I always need to break my concentration to make sure I didn't miss my stop. Reading during a TV commercial doesn't work because I split my attention off as soon as the show is back on - or I just end up ignoring the show. It's okay to only read a little bit at a time - as long as you're able to really pay attention to it.
I also remember getting burnt out on all the nonfiction I was reading. It wasn't super fun and I was getting to the point where I could only absorb so much more information before my head got too heavy to hold up anymore.
Then I picked up a novel - possibly even a teen novel, well below my "reading level" - and suddenly, reading was fun again. I didn't have to apply everything to my life or analyze or critique advice or think too hard - I got to immerse myself into the story and enjoy the ride. I think we get so caught up on reading as being educational and informative that we forget we can just read for fun - and that fun books are also good for our brains.
Nowadays, I always make sure that for every nonfiction or educational book I read, I follow it up with a piece of fiction, to make sure I'm maintaining a good balance between "work" and "play" in my reading - or at least skewing more to the side of play.
Honestly, making it more fun for myself and being honest about what feelings I'm having that make it seem like there's not enough time or energy to read (or do anything else, for that matter!) makes carving out time to do it in mindful and creative ways much more manageable. Plus, sometimes, "just two chapters" can easily turn into an entire afternoon of reading, because it's a lot easier to keep something going than to get started.
But sometimes we do just feel like doing other things. We want to play the new Legend of Zelda game (and some of us may have already logged more than 120 hours into it...). We want to chat with our friends on Facebook or Instagram, or we want to binge a new series that we just found on Netflix, or even in the library's DVD collection.
And that's okay!
It is absolutely fine to take something you enjoy, like reading, and say, "This isn't a priority for me right now." Trust me when I say that it is so, so much better to admit you want to take a break from something to do other things than to just let yourself keep feeling bad that you don't ever get around to it.
And you know, sometimes, if "this isn't a priority for me" doesn't feel like the right thing to say, it can be a good motivator to rearrange some other things on the docket.
Now, if you're the sort of person who thrives with external motivators, we do have our Summer Reading Program going on right now. (The kickoff event this past Friday was AMAZING, by the way!) It's open to all ages, with some minor differences between age groups, and it can be a great way to incentivize your own reading. I, personally, am so excited to get through my own reading backlog for the program, though really I've had all year to do it already!
But I think, at the end of it all, "I don't have time to read," really just means, "I'm not sure how to get started," or "I'm not sure how to balance the things I want to do." Those are things I think everyone struggles with from time to time. Take your time. Whether you make a plan for an hour of reading, or make a split-second decision to reach for a book instead of the remote, or even just admit that you don't want to read the book that's been staring at you from the coffee table for a week, remember that it's supposed to be fun. It can be something you want to do instead of something you're "supposed" to do.
Have you been putting off reading any books because of your busy schedule? Do you have a trick to get yourself to read even when you're feeling a little lazy? Is there any hope left at all for me to get through the mountain of books that's rapidly taking over my living room? Tell me in the comments!
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