How to Read More Books This Year

Every January, people set ambitious reading goals. Twenty books. Fifty books. A book every week. Then a few months pass, the book on the nightstand is still open to page 47, and the goal quietly starts looking unrealistic.

The problem usually isn’t that you don’t like reading. It’s that books are competing with activities that are much easier to start. Your phone is already in your hand. A show starts with one click. Reading requires you to choose a book, find some uninterrupted time, and concentrate long enough to get into it.

If you want to read more this year, you don’t necessarily need more free time. You need to make reading easier to begin and easier to return to. A few small changes can turn reading from something you keep meaning to do into something you actually do regularly.

Stop setting goals that make reading feel like homework

Reading goals can be motivating, but they can also turn books into another item on your productivity checklist.

If you decide you must read 50 books this year, every long novel suddenly becomes a problem. You may start choosing shorter books just to increase your total or forcing yourself through books you don’t enjoy because abandoning one feels like failure.

Instead of focusing entirely on the number of books you finish, consider setting a goal based on the behavior itself.

Read for 20 minutes each day. Read ten pages before bed. Spend half an hour reading on Sunday mornings. These goals put your attention on something you can actually control.

If that routine eventually produces 12 books instead of 50, you still spent dozens of hours reading. That matters more than reaching an impressive number.

Always know what you’re reading next

One surprisingly common reason people stop reading is that they finish a book and have no idea what to pick up next.

A week passes while they consider different options. Then another week passes. Eventually, the reading habit disappears.

Keep a short list of books you genuinely want to read. Not 200 books you feel vaguely obligated to read someday, but perhaps five or ten that currently interest you.

When you’re approaching the end of one book, choose the next one.

This removes a decision at exactly the moment when your reading routine is easiest to interrupt.

Your list can change whenever you want. The goal isn’t to create a rigid curriculum. It’s simply to make sure there’s always another book waiting.

Make books easier to reach than your phone

Your environment matters.

If your book is in another room while your phone is beside you, you already know which one you’re more likely to reach for during five spare minutes.

Keep books visible. Put one beside your bed, in your bag, on your desk, or wherever you regularly have downtime. If you use an e-reader, keep it somewhere convenient rather than buried in a drawer.

You can also create small periods where your phone isn’t the default activity. Leave it across the room while you read. Put it on silent. Charge it somewhere other than beside your bed if you want to read before sleeping.

You don’t need to give up social media or throw your phone into the ocean.

You just need to give the book a fair chance.

Read in the small gaps

Many people imagine reading requires a quiet two-hour block, a comfortable chair, and perhaps a cup of coffee.

That’s lovely when it happens, but you don’t need it.

Ten minutes before class is enough to read a few pages. So is a train ride, a lunch break, time spent waiting for an appointment, or 15 minutes before bed.

Small sessions accumulate surprisingly quickly.

If you read ten pages per day, you’ll read around 3,650 pages in a year. Depending on the length of the books you choose, that can add up to quite a few finished books without requiring marathon reading sessions.

The important thing is making reading one of the options available when small pockets of time appear.

Give yourself permission to abandon books

You are not legally required to finish every book you start.

If you’ve given a book a fair chance and you’re consistently avoiding it, consider putting it down.

There are too many good books available to spend months forcing yourself through one you dislike purely because you’ve already read 80 pages.

Of course, some books are difficult for good reasons. A challenging novel, history book, or work of philosophy may require patience before it becomes rewarding. Difficulty alone isn’t necessarily a reason to quit.

But there’s a difference between a book that challenges you and one you simply have no interest in reading.

Learning to abandon the second kind can actually help you read more because one bad choice no longer blocks your entire reading habit.

Read more than one book at a time

You don’t have to be completely loyal to one book.

Sometimes you want something serious and demanding. Other times, your brain wants a fast mystery, a funny memoir, or something you can read without taking notes.

Having two or three different books available gives you options depending on your mood and energy.

You might read nonfiction in the morning and fiction before bed. You could keep one physical book at home and an e-book for commuting.

This isn’t a competition to see how many books you can have open simultaneously. The point is to avoid the situation where you want to read but don’t want to read the one book you’ve decided you’re “supposed” to finish.

Use audiobooks if they help you read

Reading doesn’t have to mean sitting silently with a physical book.

Audiobooks can turn commuting, walking, cleaning, cooking, or exercising into reading time. For someone with a busy schedule, that can add several hours of books each week without requiring additional free time.

You can also switch between formats. Read a physical copy at home and continue with the audiobook while traveling.

The format matters much less than whether you’re engaging with the book.

If listening makes books easier to fit into your life, use it.

Choose books because you actually want to read them

Perhaps the simplest way to read more is to stop choosing books entirely based on what you think you should be reading.

You don’t need to spend the year working through classics because they look impressive on a shelf. You don’t need to read every bestselling productivity book. You don’t need to enjoy whatever everyone else is recommending.

Follow your curiosity.

Read science fiction, biographies, romance, history, essays, fantasy, psychology, graphic novels, literary fiction, business books, or strange books about incredibly specific subjects.

Reading more becomes much easier when you genuinely want to know what happens on the next page.

In the end, the best reading goal isn’t necessarily a number.

It’s reaching December and realizing that books became a normal part of your life — not another resolution you were supposed to complete.