“I wish I read more” is one of the most common things people say — usually right before reaching for their phone. The good news: reading more rarely requires more free time. It requires removing friction and dropping a few guilt-driven rules. Here’s how.
Table of contents
Open Table of contents
Always have a book within reach
The reason you scroll in spare moments is that your phone is right there and your book isn’t. Fix the logistics: keep a book by your bed, one in your bag, and an ebook on your phone. When the book is the path of least resistance, you’ll reach for it. This pairs naturally with a phone-light morning routine.
Give yourself permission to quit books
This is the big one. So many people stall because they’re slogging through a book they don’t enjoy out of some sense of duty — and that one bad book stops them reading anything for months. There’s no prize for finishing. If a book isn’t working by page 50, put it down guilt-free and pick up the next one. Quitting bad books is how you read more good ones.
Read more than one book at once
Schools taught us to read one book start to finish. Ignore that. Keep two or three going — something light, something heavier, maybe an audiobook — and read whichever matches your mood and energy. Tired at night? The easy one. Sharp on a commute? The demanding one.
Count the small windows
You don’t need a free evening; you need the ten minutes you already have. Waiting for a kettle, in a queue, on a commute. Ten minutes a day is a couple of dozen books a year. The trick isn’t finding big blocks of time — it’s stopping those small windows from being eaten by your phone.
Use audiobooks without guilt
Listening counts. Audiobooks turn dead time — commuting, walking, chores, the gym — into reading time, easily doubling how much you “read” in a week without adding a single minute to your schedule.
Track it, lightly
A simple count of books finished this year is oddly motivating — not as a target to stress over, but as gentle momentum. A note on your phone is enough; no need for anything fancier than one of the simple apps you already have.
The mindset that makes it stick
Stop treating reading as a project and start treating it as a default — the thing you reach for instead of the phone, in the gaps you already have. Lower the friction, drop the guilt, and the number of books quietly takes care of itself.