7 Tips for Reading More in 2022
All 52 books I read in 2021. Follow me on Goodreads to see what I’m reading.
During this time of year when many of us make New Year’s resolutions, I’m pleased to share that I achieved a personal goal of 2021: reading 52 novels in the year. Notably, not just 52 books but 52 novels—fiction, specifically. (Although, in full disclosure, I did count two memoirs and one narrative nonfiction title since they were written by novelists I admire!)
I should note, while that number was a bit of a stretch goal for me when I set it last January (particularly since some of these COVID tomes logged in at over 600 pages!), that I don’t consider 52 novels an inherently impressive reading goal. Indeed, many people in the publishing world probably read that many novels in a month.
Of course, that doesn’t prevent me from humble-bragging about it. Hell, it doesn’t prevent me from writing an entire blog post about it. When I not-so-subtly manage to weave this achievement into casual conversation, it tends to elicit one of two questions. The more avid readers usually ask, “what do you recommend?” I try to tailor my response to my perception of what that person might like, but I also did a separate post of my top 5 favorite novels of 2021 in response to this first question. Or you can see my Goodreads 52-in-21 list for ratings and reviews of everything I read in the year.
The other question I often get is something more along the lines of, “how do you have that much time to read?” My flippant answer is that I haven’t been gainfully employed in the last year! But while my flexible schedule has certainly helped, I believe reading this many books is a very achievable and sustainable goal, even with the demands of a busy job, raising children, and other time commitments.
For some people, reading at this pace comes easily—the true “book people.” The ones who genuinely live to read and do so with a singular intensity that borders on OCD. These people have MFA degrees and voraciously consume literature under green lamps at libraries while smoking a pipe. Some wear tweed, consider chess a sport, and can’t immediately recall the names of their children. Others binge-read romance novels on their Nook with a box of white Zinfandel and a pile of crumpled tissues. This post is not for those readers.
This post is for people like me who love read, but love to do a bunch of other stuff as well. People who want to read more but feel like they don’t have enough time. The reality is you do have enough time to read at this pace. I’m an MBA, not an MFA. So let me break this down in practical terms.
First, some assumptions to figure out how much time we're talking about here:
The average American novel is usually between 80,000-120,000 words (or 300-500 pages). Anecdotally, it seems like novels are starting to bifurcate into closer to 250 pages or 500+ pages, but for the sake of simple math, let's say the average novel is 100,000 words or 400 pages.
The average American person reads at a pace around 200-300 words per minute, or 12,000-18,000 words per hour. By that measure, a 100,000-word book would take around 5.5 to 8.5 hours to read. Some people read faster, some slower. And some books can be read faster, some slower. Other research suggests the average person reads about 40 pages per hour, so the same 400-page book would take them 10 hours to finish.
So, to net this out, let’s say the average novel requires 8-10 hours to read depending how fast you read and what you’re reading. So that’s what you need to find each week to finish one novel per week, or 52 in a year. That may sound like a lot of time (practically an entire work day!), but it’s really not.
Before getting into my seven tips, I have to point out that you could easily solve this with one tip: TURN OFF YOUR FUCKING TV! The average American watches a staggering 28 hours of television every week! If just that time alone was instead allocated to reading, you’d be logging over 100 books/year without breaking a sweat. TV is the main reason reading in America has declined so much. But I get that a full TV embargo is not very practical. Reading a novel about my beloved Green Bay Packers isn’t quite the same thing as watching the game live—even if I need to sit through 4 hours and 72 Toyota commercials. And, let’s face it, sometimes vegging out in front of the Sex and the City remake is just what you need to do after a long day, even if it’s just so you can complain about how bad it is.
That said, here are seven practical tips for reading more by finding 8-10 hours per week for reading:
Allocate a family reading night—if your spouse, partner, or kids are watching TV, you’re probably going to get sucked in or at least distracted. Rather than a full TV embargo, a simple solution is to allocate one night per week to reading—that’s it. Could be a Tuesday. There’s nothing good on Tuesday nights anyway. Reading gain: 2-4 hours/week.
Cut out junk media—just like there’s junk food, there’s a lot of junk media. Content that is laden with fat (i.e. advertising) with very low nutritional (i.e. informational) value. TV, especially the deep cable infomercial crap, is notorious for this. But so is social media, of which we consume about two hours per day on average. For me, the big wins were to almost entirely eliminate radio (except NPR) and magazines (except The New Yorker) from my media diet. For example, I was reading three cooking magazines that are almost entirely ads—complete waste of my mental bandwidth. Whatever your junk media is, cut it out. Trust me, you won’t miss it. Reading gain: 2 hours/week.
Take control back from your phone—smartphones and the constant distractions they facilitate have quickly overcome TV as the primary way we waste time. Americans clock 5-6 hours/day on our phones, and that's not even including work-related time. Whether your vice of choice is Candy Crush or Snapchat, you need to control it, or it will control you. Put down your phone, turn off notifications, or leave it in another room if you really can’t help yourself. And if you need an intervention, here are some tips from the Center for Humane Technology for taking back control. Reading gain: 4 hours/week.
Buy more books—this sounds so simple, and really . . . it is. That physical reminder of a stack of books that you want to read sitting on your desk or nightstand is one of the easiest things you can do to encourage yourself to read more. So go to your local independent bookstore at least once a month and just grab four books you think look interesting. You may not read them all. That's OK! You can afford the $80-100/month investment, probably half what you're paying per month for cable TV.
Embrace audiobooks—almost every book title is now available in a high-quality audiobook that is two clicks away on your phone. Forming this habit was a huge boost to my book consumption, enabling me to pick up two critical chunks of time: drive time and exercise time. Americans spend over 8 hours per week in their cars and let’s call it 90 minutes per week doing physical activity. That’s a lot of time. I used to think listening to audiobooks was cheating, but I’ve found just as much enjoyment and retention of audio “reading” as visual reading. Over one-third of the books I read last year were on audiobook. It was one of the biggest time unlocks for reading I found. And I still have plenty of time to listen to podcasts or Spotify. Reading gain: 3 hours/week.
Consume books concurrently—I used to read books sequentially, not starting a new one until I finished the previous one. Now I am almost always reading three books at a time, usually one in hardcopy, one e-book, and one audiobook. As long as the genres and plots are different enough, I have no difficulty keeping the stories distinct in my mind. What this unlocks is dozens of little micro-pockets of time—picking up your kids, waiting for a train or bus, idling before Zoom calls, etc.—that readily become reading time. These little 5-10 minute windows quickly add up. Reading gain: 1 hour/week.
Set a reading goal—Finally, I have to admit, having a goal of reading 52 books in 2021 was itself a motivation. Like any self-improvement goal or New Year's resolution, the mere act of setting it can help you achieve it. If you use Goodreads, try out their handy reading challenge feature for an easy way to set a number that will push you but you can strive to hit.
All together, the above tips should carve out 12-14 hours per week that you can use for reading without drastic changes in your habits or time allocation. After a year of reading at this pace, it now feels normal to me. Like an exercise routine or other healthy habit that no longer seems daunting but a regular part of my life. So, of course, I've set out on another 52-book challenge for 2022, and with my January goal already almost done, I'm off to a good start. Happy reading!