If you love to read, and you want to make sure that you are doing it as much as possible, there is plenty that you are going to want to think about in order to make that a reality. The truth is that reading is the kind of thing that a lot of people struggle to make time for these days, and when that happens it can be easy to fall out of practice with it, only to find that you never again get back into it – or at least not without a great deal of effort. It is far preferable to merely try and make reading much more a part of your life from as soon as possible so that it will be considerably easier to keep it on in that way.
In this article, we are going to discuss some of the things that you might want to try and do in order to ensure that you are going to make reading much more a part of your life. As long as you follow some of these directives, you should find that you can much more readily do that and that you will enjoy the many benefits of having done so soon enough. So what can you really do to make reading more a part of your life, and how easy can it really be?
Value It
The first thing is to look into what you currently feel about reading. You should do this genuinely, without trying to pretend or force anything, and see what comes up when you do so. If you feel that maybe you don’t value reading in quite the same way as you used to, then that is something that you will want to look into. It might be that this is merely due to the fact that you have stopped reading quite so frequently, rather than the other way around, and if that is so then it is definitely something that you should think about. By looking into how much you value reading, you might remember that you really do, and it could be that this is enough to make it much more a part of your life again in no time.
Of course, if during this process you discover that you really don’t value it in the same way anymore, that does not necessarily mean that you are going to have to stick with that. It might be a clear sign that it is merely time to start making reading more a part of your life again. If you are reading this, then that is probably what you want to do, so it is definitely a good idea to make sure that you are going to do that. But it’s useful to first appreciate what it might be that is getting in the way of you valuing reading if there is anything so that you know how to move forward from this unfortunate situation.
Remedying The Lost Value
In order to be sure that you can start reading again with great enjoyment, you will need to remedy the lost value in reading that you may have noticed. That will ensure that you can then work out what it is that led to it, which will, in turn, mean that you are much more likely to be able to make it a part of your life again. As you can probably understand, this is something that might take a long time to get to the bottom of, and you don’t need to worry about rushing around trying to make it work if you don’t feel that this is necessary. Often, it will be enough merely to think about it for a time, and then you should be able to see the kind of results you are hoping for.
Remedying this lost value is going to mean that you can come to terms with whatever might have been getting in the way of your love of reading, which is absolutely going to be a hugely important thing to be aware of. So it is worth it for that reason alone, and you should find that once you have looked into this you can then start to think about what you are going to need to do in order to start making reading a part of your life again. Next up, we will start to look at some more practical ways to make that happen.
Finding The Time
If you ask people why they no longer read so much, one of the very first things that they are going to say is that they don’t have the time. This is such a common remark that we have all come to accept it, and it seems as though it is certainly true. But how true is it, really? Technically, we have as many hours in the day as we always did, and it is not the case that we are suddenly dealing with shorter days or lives – if anything, we’re living longer. So how can it be that we feel we are running out of time, and what might we do to help this along and improve things a little in this area?
Really what people mean when they say that they are struggling to find the time to read is that they have a life which is structured in such a way that they are so busy doing other things that they can’t imagine having time for reading in their busy schedule. But it doesn’t take too long to pop that particular balloon. If you spend even just one hour in front of the television a day, that is the time that you could spend reading. If you start to look closely and – what’s much more difficult – honestly at your daily schedule, you should see that you actually have plenty of time to read – it’s just that you don’t, and you generally do something else instead.
So if you feel that you don’t have the time, make a point of making the time. It’s definitely there, you just need to actually make reading a priority in your life. Once you start doing that, you will find yourself reading all the time.
Finding The Space
For some people, it’s not so much a matter of finding the time as a matter of finding the space, or in other words, finding somewhere where they can actually sit down and read for an extended period of time without being disturbed. If that is a problem that you have in your life, then you will be pleased to hear that there are actually many simple solutions to this particular problem. Even if you live in a busy household and you feel you barely have a moment to yourself, you might want to think about trying to take yourself away somewhere to read every now and then. That could be an empty pub, a public park, or even a Bond Collective working space. Wherever you go, you should always feel that there are options available to you, as indeed there are, and that is absolutely something that you are going to want to think about. Finding the space should actually be fairly easy once you try it out.
Reading What You Love
Of course, if you are hoping to fall back in love with reading, then you are going to have to be careful about what you first choose to read. You want to find something that you know you are going to enjoy, and it might be that you need to let go of certain ideas surrounding the notion of what you should be reading. In truth, there is no such thing as ‘should’ read, and you might want to bear that in mind when you are picking out something to read for yourself, especially when you are trying to get back into it.
In short, what we are saying here is that you should feel absolutely free to read whatever you like, even if you feel that it is not particularly clever or highbrow. There will be time for all that stuff later on, but for now just get back into the reading habit by picking up anything that you like the look of, even if it might appear a little trashy or whatever. Reading what you really want to read is what it’s all about, that is what’s important – and it’s what is really enjoyable about reading.
Join A Book Club
If you want to really cement this whole thing, then joining a book club is a really effective way to do so. When you join a book club, you are going to find that you are much more likely to be able to keep up with your reading schedule, as you will have a setlist of texts which you are going to need to read each week, fortnight or however often it might be that you meet. Find a club in your area, and you can get reading soon.
Mocha Girl Alysia
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