How To Find Time to Read

I know that finding time to read is difficult, with all the electronic distractions, physical exercise, work and sleep you have to do in 24 hours. Here are some tips for finding time to read:

1. Read ten minutes a day. Ten minutes a day will add up to twenty books a year.

2. Have piles of books stored in book cases that you plan "some day" to read? Nonfiction. Take down a nonfiction book, any nonfiction book, and begin reading the first and last paragraphs of each chapter. You will gain a good understanding of the main ideas of the book. You will also have an abundance of questions. Begin to answer those questions by reading the first sentence of each paragraph in chapter one. If you become "hooked," keep reading everything. Bored? Go back to reading the first sentence of each paragraph. This method is the quickest way to find ideas fast without wading through tons of, frankly, unnecessary prose.

3. Getting Started. Reading the first and last paragraph of chapters is a way to overcome inertia with both nonfiction and fiction--one method for becoming hooked on the book.

4. Novels. What can you do when you are falling asleep reading a novel? Try reading one paragraph a page. You will be amazed at how much you can learn about the plot of a novel from reading a paragraph a page and how soon you will become absorbed in reading everything. Hooked? Keep reading. Things slowing down? Try reading a paragraph a page until you are hooked again.

5. Articles. Read the first and last paragraph. Know enough? Go on to the next article. Questions about the article? Read the first sentence of each paragraph in the article. Know enough? Go on to the next article. In my reading of professional journals, I start with the first and last paragraphs--introducing and summarizing the article--which usually gives me the main idea of the article. With most articles that is enough information. However, with two or three articles, I read the first and last paragraphs and the first sentence of each intermediate paragraph, which usually gives me the details that answer my questions. Very rarely do I need to read the entire article.

Francis Bacon, in 1625, said --and I am paraphrasing--some books are to be tasted, or read only in parts; some books are to be swallowed whole, i.e., read rapidly, like westerns, romantic fiction, mysteries; and some few books are to be read thoroughly, carefully and completely. For me, reading books is a search for ideas and I don't need to read every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every page and every chapter of every book to find the ideas that cause me to think.

Traditional Method of Reading. You feel as if you must read from page one to the last page, every word, every sentence, every paragraph. You feel that if the author spent so much time writing the book, you should spend the same amount of time reading it. Be my guest.

I hope some of the books I will review in this blog will tempt you to sample their ideas and then cause you to read the book.

RayS.