Yes, You Can Find Time To Ready

Enjoying books doesn’t have to happen only when you’re on vacation. Use these tips to fit a few pages into your busy day.

- Elizabeth Sile

“I wish I had more time to read.”

I hear this almost anytime I mention my job as Real Simple’s books editor. To decide what titles we recommend in the magazine and online, I finish between one and three books in an average week. That’s not counting the 50 pages I might read of a book before I realize it’s not for our readers. Or the purely personal reading I do for my monthly book club and to satisfy niche interests.

Even before I made a living reading, I always loved books— the escape they gave me, the perspective even fiction offered on my own life. But a few years ago, I felt I wasn’t finishing as many as I used to (having cable for the first time in a decade may have had something to do with it). So I formally set a goal to read more and track my progress. Since then, I’ve doubled the number of books I read each year (from 40 to 80) by fitting in reading whenever and wherever I have a free minute.

You can make time for more books too. Try the strategies here to get to that satisfying, turned-the-last-page feeling.

drop misconceptions

Many of us buy into not-actually-real rules that make reading feel daunting—like that we have to finish what we start or that we should only read Serious Literature, says Daniel T. Willingham, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and author of Raising Kids Who Read.

You officially have permission on the following: You do not have to finish a book—and if you dread picking a certain one up, that’s probably a sign to move on. You can peek at the ending or even skip around. Reading isn’t a race, and there’s nothing wrong with going slow.