As a Book­sta­gram­mer one of the ques­tions I get asked the most is, “How do you find time to read so much?” The sec­ond ques­tion I get asked a lot —“Is read­ing your full-time job?”. Peo­ple are be­wil­dered and of­ten sur­prised that I read “so much” even while hold­ing down an in­tense man­age­r­i­al po­si­tion in my day­time job. So far, for the year I have read over 100 books—122 if you want to be spe­cif­ic. How do you find the time to not on­ly read but read “a lot”? Here is how:

Make the time to read

I know this may sound like an ob­vi­ous an­swer, but I in­ten­tion­al­ly make time to read on a dai­ly, week­ly and month­ly ba­sis. I set aside time to read for 90-120 min­utes dur­ing the week and a bit more on week­ends. This is where I should add the dis­claimer—my lifestyle, that is be­ing young and with­out chil­dren, al­lows for me to spend as much time—out­side of work­ing hours—read­ing. While I don’t spend ALL my free time read­ing, I do spend or try to spend a sig­nif­i­cant amount of my free time do­ing so. I know a lot of per­sons do not have a lot of time be­cause of lifestyle con­straints and I am sure a lot more of you do not want to spend the 40 min­utes you have for your­self to read— I un­der­stand the strug­gle. With that said, if you are in­tent on read­ing more, start off small. De­cide to read for 10 to 15 min­utes dai­ly, be it be­fore work, dur­ing your lunch break, while trav­el­ling to work, when wait­ing on the chil­dren or even in the line at the bank. Take the mo­ments where you have to wait and use them to read. Ten to 15 min­utes dai­ly might not sound like a lot, but it is a great start.

Set a read­ing goal

Every year, I de­cide on how many books I want to read for the year (I’ve been do­ing this since 2005). I am very goal ori­ent­ed and hav­ing a plan in mind helps me to achieve what I set out to do. This year, I made a goal to read 120 books, that amounts to ten books a month and two books a week. At the start of the month I de­cide on which books I want to read, I will ei­ther end up read­ing over ten books or just un­der ten. Hav­ing the stacks vis­i­ble along with a copy of the book I am cur­rent­ly read­ing in my bag helps a lot. We set goals for every part of our lives, hav­ing read­ing goals is noth­ing new and it helps in keep­ing me fo­cused.

Goodreads is your friend

With Goodreads.com I can track my read­ing goals. The app al­lows you to put in your goal for the year and when you log in, it tells you how far ahead or be­hind you are. The app al­so of­fers rec­om­men­da­tions on books you can read based on your read­ing pref­er­ences.

If you are think­ing about read­ing more, I en­cour­age you to down­load the Goodreads ap­pli­ca­tion and check in at least week­ly.

Ask for book rec­om­men­da­tions

As a book­sta­gram­mer, a lot of my con­ver­sa­tions cen­tre around read­ing and books. I am ei­ther al­ways giv­ing book rec­om­men­da­tions or get­ting one. I have a list of over 100 books I want to read and that list is al­ways grow­ing. Hav­ing a list of books you want to read helps to mo­ti­vate you to keep read­ing. Some­times I get in a rut and when I check my “to read list” a book will grab my at­ten­tion and that is how I find my next read. If you are on In­sta­gram, I sug­gest fol­low­ing some Book­sta­gram ac­counts, this way, book rec­om­men­da­tions will end up on your feed—you might even see one you love that speaks to you. I heard @bookofcinz is re­al­ly good —#Shame­less­Plug.

Join a book club

One of the eas­i­est ways to read more is to join a book club. In Jan­u­ary of 2019, I start­ed the BookOfCinz Book Club—we meet month­ly to dis­cuss the month­ly pick. A fel­low Book Club­ber told me that through join­ing and com­mit­ting to the Book club she is en­sur­ing that she reads at least 12 books for the year. Be­ing a part of a book club is an easy way to stay ac­count­able and en­sure you get in more read­ing.

There you have it, some ways I en­sure that I make the time to read. To date, I have ex­ceed­ed my read­ing goal of 120 and I have upped my goal to 150. Fin­gers crossed I make it.