There are many factors that cause the so-called “reading slump.” Be it work-related stress, daily time constraints, or being rocked into a slump after reading an entirely-too-good book, we’ve all experienced putting a book down and taking a very long time to pick another one up. There’s nothing wrong with experiencing a slump, but many of us have reading goals for the year and are constantly aiming to read more. Slumps can affect us to the point that we no longer reach these goals or to where we fall behind on our reading lists.
Fortunately, there are a lot of great ways to get yourself reading again. From creating small moments during your day to read to finding the excitement of picking up a new book again, there is a way for everyone to motivate themselves to make reading a habit once more.
Accountability Partner
One great way to pull yourself out of a slump is to find someone else to hold you accountable. Reading a book along with a friend can help keep you on track. Many people do this with TV shows or movies, so why not books? It’s like a mini, two-person book club! You can choose a book from your TBR (Tailored Book Recommendations) list and ask a friend to join you in reading it. Then, you can discuss the book as you go along. This can also lead to some insightful discussions about the book between you and your friend as an added bonus.
Designating a Reading Time
Another way to read consistently is to give yourself an allotted amount of time to read each day. For example, reading for 30 minutes in the morning or before bed will help you progress through your book a little bit at a time. Not everybody can keep a daily routine, but those who can will benefit greatly from the repetitive activity. This short time period could also make you more focused on your book as you only have this 30 minutes to read. Eventually, you may find yourself looking forward to this time set aside for a beloved activity.
Related: Writer’s Block & How to Creatively Procrastinate
If you have a hard time sticking to a daily routine because of how chaotic life generally is, another way to guarantee a certain amount of reading per day is to pick a page limit. For example, 20 pages per day is doable for most people. This amount of reading can be done while you’re sipping your coffee in the morning, while waiting in line at the grocery store, or while on your lunch break from work. A few pages here or there in your free moments will help you through your book slowly but surely. Plus, you can always fit in a few extra pages whenever you have more time. For those who like challenges, you can challenge yourself to fit in a few more pages than the day before!
Read an Anthology
While some of us are able to read a book in small sections at a time, there are also those of us who struggle to read this way as it feels too sluggish. When you don’t have enough time to read but also don’t want to break a book up into 50 sections, a good tip is to try reading an anthology. There are a lot of great anthologies of short stories by popular authors, like Ted Chiang and Stephen King, to name a few.
Also, there are compilations, like Best American Essays. If you’ve been to a chain bookstore recently, you’ve likely seen sci-fi or horror story collections that are relatively cheap and contain a plethora of small tales. This is a good way to break up your reading into short periods of time without the fear of losing interest in the novel.
Refine Your Reading List
Sometimes a reading slump isn’t about having too little time to read, but rather about not knowing what to read next. This can be an issue of having an ultra-long “To Be Read” list, or having no list at all. A great way to find your next book is to think of the last book you read (or, if that was too long ago, a book you enjoyed reading a lot) and do a search for books similar to that one. You’re likely to come up with several lists of similar books, and this may help you choose your next one. You can even cross-reference these suggestions to see if any are already on your TBR list!
Switch Genres
There have been other times where I’ve found myself in the position of finishing a really great book in a certain genre or completing a long series and have no desire to read anything similar. Either because the book/series was excellent and I don’t want that to color how I feel about another book in the same genre or because I’ve just finished something like Game of Thrones and I can give fantasy a rest for a minute. This is something that, too, can cause a reading slump.
The best way to avoid this is to use a “palate cleanser.” For example, switch to a book or genre that’s entirely different from what you’ve just read. This allows you to read another book without comparing it to the previous one, and it can give you a break from something like intense high fantasy or difficult-to-comprehend nonfiction. If I’ve just read fantasy, I might switch to a classic novel or even gothic lit to have a completely different experience.
Reread a Favorite Book or Series
And lastly, in cases where it’s been so long since you’ve read a book that the task of reading anything new is unbearably daunting, a great tactic is to reread a book you know you love. This is a great way to get back into reading and avoid the excuse of, “What if I don’t like it?” Well, if it’s a book you’ve read before, you’ll know it’s going to be a great time! My personal favorite book to reread if I’ve been in a slump is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. You can even try rereading a series to make it less likely that you’ll stop again after only one book.
Overall, reading slumps are very common and happen to everyone. Still, there are several ways we can motivate ourselves to get reading again. When there are so many books to be read, we must try our best to stay on track!