Life’s pretty busy.
Between work, family, laundry, email and everything else, it’s not always easy to find a minute to pick that book up off the coffee table and read.
So how do we carve out the time?
1. Think of it as therapy.
Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, leads a busy life.
But reading is important enough to him that he carves time out for it every day.
“Reading has always been therapy for me,” Lance said. “In a busy world of demands and commitments, reading the Bible and choice books can be a retreat without traveling to a literal destination.”
It’s a convenient retreat, but getting there requires discipline, just like exercise or eating right.
But, like Lance, if you can think of it as a restful (though productive) activity, it might be easier to train yourself to click the TV off and pick up a book for a few minutes each day instead.
2. Find a good place.
Many dedicated readers say that having a good spot where they like to sit and read helps motivate them to want to return to that book over and over.
Alex Wolf’s spot is the brick courtyard in her backyard. And she says her mother, Mary Ruth, always chooses a certain chair.
“My mental picture of my mother is her sitting in this overstuffed brown armchair in the corner of our living room,” Alex Wolf said. “She has her feet tucked beneath her and a book in her hand, and usually another pile of books on the table nearby.”
But a “good place” doesn’t have to be a certain spot in the house.
It also can be your lunch break at work, a waiting room where you go often or the carpool line at school where you sit each afternoon. Being proactive and having a book with you can help to redeem those moments you might normally while away on your smartphone.
Lance said he does this when he travels.
“I have a Kindle or books with me when I travel by car and plane,” he said. “Books are wonderful companions when one is traveling.”
Mary Ruth Wolf agreed.
“On car trips our children carried stacks of books. We also listened to books on tape,” she said.
3. Train yourself to focus better.
For many people it’s getting harder and harder to sit and focus these days. Impatience and forgetfulness are an “ugly toll of technology,” according to The New York Times, and The Atlantic reports that our ability to focus starts to dwindle as early as our 20s.
It’s something any would-be reader has to be aware of — and combat.
The blog Lifehacker noted that focusing our attention is a “form of endurance athleticism,” something we can practice and train for, stretching our capacity to focus.
“It is as much Twitter’s fault that you have a short attention span as it is your closet’s fault it doesn’t have any running shoes in it,” Lifehacker reports. “If you want the ability to focus on things for a long period of time, you need attention fitness.”
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