A woman who reads 10 or more books a month while working a full-time 9-5 job has shared her three golden rules for maximising reading time. Halle, who posts on Instagram as @readwithhalle, said she hopes the tips help others with their reading goals, but emphasised that reading is not a competition.
Mood reading is key
Halle revealed that the most important thing is to 'mood read' – avoiding books that feel like a chore or genres that do not appeal at a specific moment. 'I will typically have two or three books of different genres in my rotation,' she shared, reading whatever she fancies.
'Listen to your mood, and listen to your brain and what it wants to read, because who wants to read when they're not in the mood for the book that they're reading?' she said.
Replace doomscrolling with reading
Halle admitted that putting her phone down at night and picking up her Kindle to read is 'really hard to do,' but it can be done. 'I read every night until I fall asleep, usually for an hour or so, depending on how tired I am, but just lying down and reading until you go to bed instead of doomscrolling on your phone is one of the easiest ways to read about 100 pages in a day,' Halle said.
Audiobooks count as reading
Halle said that 'audiobooks do count as reading,' and if you think otherwise, 'you're wrong,' in her opinion. If she is reading a book and needs to do a task but is invested in the story, she puts the audio on while doing 'mindless tasks' like cleaning or showering. Halle called it an 'easy way to read while doing other things'.
She promised that if you implement these tips, you will get more reading done and 'won't even realise it'. In the comments, one person wrote: 'Doomscrolling is the real time killer! You don't even realise it until you see your screen time.' Another added: 'HARD YES on the mood reading. You're not gonna read if you're forcing your way through it!!'
