At school this month, the kids are celebrating “I Love To Read” month, complete with a fun mystery theme and activities, culminating in a book fair. It was my favorite time of year as a kid, can you believe it? (I think it still is).
Reading often takes time, energy and planning. Habits can be tough to begin, while hobbies are usually something we enjoy doing, and carry more weight along the motivation stream. So, whether reading is a habit, or a hobby for you, it plays a role in how and what we think, influencing our perspectives and challenging us in different ways.
So, here are a few ideas to help you along the life of reading, as we try to squeeze in minutes and instill motivation.
Instead of watching TV
We don’t have satellite or Netflix at our house, but we conceded to Disney+. I think the amount of subscriptions can be overwhelming, and we just don’t spend a lot of time there. Many hours can be spent watching the latest TV series, so if you want to spend a little more time reading, consider trading off time from TV to pages.
Switch-up your content
Diversifying the genres you read helps keep you interested, and grow your reading skills. It’s easy to get lost in a fictional story, while getting lost in a biography, the story of someone else’s life can be more challenging or, consider a book on Christian living to help guide you into new areas of personal growth.
Your avenue of reading
During this time of pandemic restrictions, the pace of life is significantly slower. As it returns to a faster speed, we will find ourselves out more, and our calendars fuller. To help your reading, have a book downloaded on your phone, so you can read while you wait for your appointment, to get a few pages in while you have time. Another idea is to make use of audiobooks. You can listen while you drive, or make dinner. I still love the feel of pages between my hands, but when I’m on a break at work, or waiting somewhere, I can easily pull out a device.
On finding books
I’ve found our local library a great resource, also our church library. While we were homeschooling our kids, we purchased a yearly membership at the city library, so we could access more specific books to what we were learning. When it comes to Christian living and theology, these are less available to borrow, and the cost to purchase isn’t what I’m always willing to do. So, I’ve made use of ebook deals, to grab books I’m interested in reading when they go on sale for $2-3 (then, if I really enjoy them, I buy them as a hard copy later). Tim Challies hosts daily kindle deals for Christians, and you can get daily alerts from Gospelebooks. You can also check out Amazon and Bookbub for sales.
Hope some of these tips are helpful for you, if you're wanting to grow a habit of reading!
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