To read more books you do not need more motivation. You need a smaller start and a place where the book is within reach. Below are seven changes you can make in one evening. Each has a number or a concrete move, because “try to read more often” has never helped anyone.

5pages a day to start
≈ 7250-page books a year
0penalties for a rough day

Start with a number, not with motivation

Five pages a day is about seven 250-page books a year. That is far more than most people assume at the start, and it takes a few minutes. How to work out your own goal is in how many books a year to read.

7 changes that really help

  1. Pick a regular time. Tea after breakfast, the commute, a quarter of an hour before sleep. A specific moment saves decisions. More on habit anchors in how to build a reading habit.
  2. Keep the book in sight. On the table, in your bag, on your phone screen if you read ebooks. It is easier to reach for something lying next to you. Your phone, on the other hand, can go further away: we cover staying focused while reading separately.
  3. Start with five pages. A minimum you cannot fail to do matters more than an ambitious goal that disappears after a week. Not sure how fast you read? A three-minute reading speed test tells you.
  4. Put down books that do not hook you. Reading out of duty kills the appetite for the next book. Putting one down is not losing. Our guide on when to DNF a book helps you spot the moment.
  5. Have two books going. One light, one slower. If one drags, the other still keeps you reading.
  6. Use audiobooks for commutes. Minutes of listening count too, if you agree that up front. How to count mixed formats is in pages or minutes: what to count.
  7. Make progress visible. A bar on a book spine or a week in your stats motivates more than “I feel like I read more”.

What to do after a rough week

Nothing special. Return to the small minimum at the next chance and do not write yourself a debt like “now I will read three times as much”. If the break was longer, see the plan for getting back into reading after a break.

How to tell whether it works

After a month, compare two numbers: pages in the first and in the last week. Do not look for a record, look for direction. If it is rising, leave everything as it is. If it is flat, change one thing: the time or the book. You can log progress in a notebook or an app, and how to choose is in our guide to reading tracker apps.

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