How To Start and Finish A Book
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved reading. It wasn’t until University, where I swapped regular books for textbooks, that my love for reading started to dwindle. After I graduated in 2020 amidst the lockdown, I decided to start reading again.
But as we all know, staying consistent with reading can be challenging, especially with social media distractions. To overcome this challenge and ensure that I complete every book I start, I devised a four-step system.
Step One: Pick the right book to read.
To finish a book, you have to genuinely want to read it. That’s why it’s imperative to pick the right book for you.
If you’re new to reading, I recommend books that are no more than 250 pages to make reading less daunting. Reading is a skill, and like any new skill, you want to start off small and gradually increase in difficulty.
I like to compare reading to running. If you’re new to running, you aren’t going to immediately try to run a 10K. Instead, you’d start off running a shorter distance and slowly increase your duration as you build endurance. The same goes for reading; start with a short book and slowly increase in difficulty as you become a stronger reader.
In addition to ensuring that the books you read are no more than 250 pages, try reading books aligned with your goals, values, and interests, so you have more incentive to finish the book.
Read books that:
- Can help your weaknesses
- Can enhance your strengths
- Can further your career
- Can help you achieve your goals
- You are curious about
- You are passionate about
Step Two: Divide and conquer
This step requires some basic math. But if I can do it (and I’m pretty bad at math), then so can you.
Once you’ve picked your book, decide how many days you want to read it. I usually recommend a book per week, but you know your schedule best. Afterward, you want to check the book’s total number of chapters. Divide that number of chapters by the days you want to read the book.
The answer you get is your daily reading goal.
Example: 15 chapters / five days = three chapters per day
Step Three: Schedule reading time
If you struggle with reading consistently, make it a point to read at the same time for the same duration daily. Similar to the running example that I used above, you want to set a reasonable reading time and length.
For beginners, a duration of 15-30 minutes is recommended. As your focus improves, you can increase the duration, ideally to 1 hour of reading per day. As for time, I love reading early in the morning because my brain is the sharpest, and there are minimal distractions.
Choose a time of day that works best for you and stick to it.
Example: reading from 6 am-7 am every day
Step Four: Reward yourself
Rewarding yourself is one of the most critical steps because, without a reward, you’ll have less incentive to continue the habit of reading. The reward can be either intrinsic or extrinsic, or both. You can also choose to reward yourself while reading your book and after.
Example
- Paying yourself $1 every time you achieve your daily reading goal
- Buying yourself a new book after you finish reading
Conclusion
Reading, especially if you’re new to it, can be tricky—but it doesn’t have to be. By implementing a strategic approach to reading, you can become a stronger reader and will no longer need to rely on external systems to help you finish a book.
