Top 10 Powerful Tips to Build Sustainable Reading Habits

My reading habits have changed a lot in the past 11 months. My goal was to read 2 books a month; I traversed that threshold and finished 27 thick books in 10 months. Here are a couple of things I did for measuring my reading goal. The following reading habits might intrigue you to accomplish your reading goals.

1- Notion

I am using Notion, an online productivity tool, to measure my book reading habit and write a book report. It’s working wonderfully; after completing the book, I usually write a summary about 2–3 things I learned from the book.

2- Kindle

The spooky fact I did to develop sustainable reading habits, I purchased an iPad mini in 2015 to read. I know it’s odd that why an iPad when there are great e-readers. Therefore, I recently switched to Kindle Paperwhite, and I must say I love it and reading even more, especially to take notes while reading the book. I also use a tool called Readwise to see revisit my notes coherently.

3-Build a streak

I believe reading should be purposeful to build a streak. For example, if I want to learn any topic, I buy a couple of highly reviewed books, originally published articles and spend a focused 20 hours to understand the subject.

4- Pomodoro technqiue

Using the Pomodoro technique, I started to focus on doing more work especially reading. I will share my detailed Notion template later; it might help someone to boost their reading goals.

5- Read different book

As an adult, my reading preference has changed to read 3 different non-fictional books at any given month if I get bored with one topic.

6- Buy books on sale

I proactively keep an eye on amazon, chapters, etc., to buy books on sale.

7- Set daily minimum reading time

I read every day for at least 60 minutes — 25 minutes focused Pomodoro method.

8- Use technology to track

Here is a crazy trick I practice to get extra time for reading; I am a huge Apple fan and love their product’s reliability factor. iPhone screentime is a game-changer; I do not spend more than 90 minutes a day on the phone. When I started to build this habit, I used to spend roughly 3–4 hours per day on the phone by continuously checking Gmail, Slack, Insta, Quora, LinkedIn, etc.

9- Book buddy

Get a book buddy or join your local or online book club to share your progress.

10- Track your progress

Track your progress! Get a wall or desk calendar, place it wherever you want to do your reading. In my case, I put it on the wall to tick the date to build my best streak. If you are tech-savvy, you can even use Kindle insights.

Key takeaways

Reading has always been a significant part of my life. Reading stimulates the brain to get more ideas in life and spend some quality. Here are the key takeaways to develop sistainable reading habits.

1. Measure your book reading habit
2. Try to use Kindle from the portability pespective
3. Build a streak even reading 10-15 minutes a day
4. Work in time intervals
5. Keep buying books as you go for shopinng
6. Read at least 2 different topics at any time
7. Set a daily reading time, for example 4 minutes in the morning or evening
8. You can easily track the progress if you are reading form Kindle
9. Find a book buddy to share your progress
10. Buy a physical calendar to simply tick if you read that day

Thank you for reading!

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