How I make time to read every day

Reading is and will always be the greatest pleasure for me. But it always wasn’t so. 

I wish I hadn’t taken so long to start investing in myself. I regret not having started to read earlier, but better late than never. I’m still in my 20s and I am so glad to have come to discover the joys of reading. 

Reading good books is the greatest investment we can give to ourself.

We think it is a hard task to read everyday, but consider this- with the number of things you read online and the amount of time you spend reading all the captions, all the content, all the statuses, if you had read a book, you would have finished at least 5 books in a month!

You just need to prioritise a bit of time here and there. And if you follow the same technique as I do, you too will be able to read everyday without fail. It is how my mother cultivated her reading habit too. 

But before I tell you how I make time to read everyday, I want to share how reading has and is helping me shape my life and why we all must read. ( feel free to skip this part if you want )

Why I read

When I read I feel I have become friends with great men. I am able to know their powerful thoughts, I come in contact with their ideals and I too gain the knowlege they took pains to acquire. 

My experiences which is otherwise limited to the confines of those whom I know and what I experience breaks its boundaries. My life gets richer, my narrow thinking becomes broad. Reading helps me be open.

Whether I read something that was written hundreds of years ago or just a year ago, I come to know that we all share the same human experiences and emotions of love, fear, anger, courage, vulnerability, strength, pride, compassion and everything else that makes us human. 

This arises compassion and empathy for our fellow human beings whom we otherwise think as being so different, so separate from us. 

Reading can help us uncover the masks of religion, race, colour, nationality and everything that divides us and leads us to the truth of us- of us all actually being feeling individuals, feeling human beings.

Perhaps if we all read, the world would be a better place. Books, like all other form of art, helps us to come in touch with our human self. 

And at this current age when we are all in dire need of hope and strength, our greatest refuge can be those good books which are left behind so compassionately so that we may take advantage of them. 

It would be such a loss to our privilede- to be able to know how to read but still not reading them. 

So I hope from my heart that you do cultivate the reading habit and read everyday. 

Now, getting back to how I make time to read everyday and how you can too.

How I make time to read every day

Read first thing in the morning: 

I cultivated the reading habit when I started to have a morning routine. Before that, my mornings were never great.

They used to start with being in my bed checking my phone for a long time and then finally getting up to brush and get ready for the day or just spending more time in bed. 

Now I can’t imagine living and spending my morning that way. Now my morning routine consists of these 5 sacred indredients and it has brought me so many positive changes!

Simply by making a little shift in how I spend my morning helped me cultivate many good habits, the first one being the reading habit.

Instead of checking my phone first thing in the morning, I simply spend my first few morning hours only for myself. And in that time I keep aside 30 minutes for reading my morning read. This is the only habit that allows me to read every day.

You can do the same. Have a morning routine and before letting the world get to you, invest in yourself and read.

Related post: A guide on creating a simple daily routine that works wonders

Mornings are for reading self help kind of books. Currently I am reading ‘Daring Greatly’ by Brene Brown. It is about vulnerabilty and how it is actually not a sign of weakness but an opportunity to be courageous, to be brave and to dare greatly.

I keep aside specific time for my evening read too. It is after I wake up from my afternoon nap.

We need to set time aside intentionally for reading instead of waiting when we will be free to read. This makes all the difference. And this is true for any other habit.

And other thing I wanted to share is:

• Keep a reading goal based on the number of pages you want to read or the time you want to give for reading. You can start with reading 10 minutes every morning (in 10 minutes you can actually read 5 pages) or with reading 5 pages every morning and gradually increase. 

Spend the first hour of your day reading and investing in yourself. Try it. Experiment with it. It will bring positivity in your life. 

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