How to read more books in 2021?
Reading books is a hobby which can completely change our life. Once someone develops the habit of reading, it's impossible to separate him from his newfound joy. People read because it allows them to learn new things and increases their exposure. A simple turn of the page can make them friends with Sherlock Holmes or take them to the magical world of Hogwarts.
However, despite the sheer urge to read as many books as possible, many people fail to read or finish their wish-list because of the time it takes to read one book. For someone who has been into reading for quite some time now, this might not be a limiting factor because it would be effortless for them to get into the flow and finish the book in no time. Still, it might be Hercule's task to finish one book and jump into the next one for someone who has just gotten into reading. If you belong to the second category, then don't worry. We can fix that problem and increase our reading speed in this digital age very quickly. One of the pieces of advice I give to every reader is to get into digital reading.
E-books and audiobooks can change our reading environment and make reading more efficient. If you only like to read physical books, I get it; I understand from where it is coming. I have a small tip for you as well. One of the best ways to improve reading speed is to use a pointer while reading books; you can use your finger as a pointer and move your finger as fast as you want to read. Many other tips on the internet could help you read more books like skimming, Ali Abdaal made a whole video about this topic on his channel, and a simple google search could land you "n" number of tips. My focus mainly in this blog is for people who like or don't mind reading books digitally. As I said above, technology helps us in improving our reading speed. The best way to read books in today's day and age is audiobooks. If you are new to reading or someone who has a big-time crunch, then audiobooks are your thing. Audiobooks provide you with the same immersive experience without occupying any time on your calendar. You can just hit play and continue with your work while the book will be playing in the background. It is also very easy to finish audiobooks quickly.
All you need to do is toggle the speed to your convenience 1.5x or 1.75x, whichever speed suits you. Now lets come to e-books, the pointer tip which I gave for physical books also works for e-books, and all other tips which work for physical books work for e-books as well like skimming (if you got the gist of what the author is saying, you skip those bits and move forward). There is another powerful tip when it comes to e-books if you are using kindle or the kindle app for reading books. Whenever you pause your reading session for some work, all you need to do is go to Alexa App on your phone(or the Alexa dot) and ask Alexa to read the book, and it will continue reading precisely from the place where you stopped. You continue with your work, and Alexa will be reading the book for you in the background. Later, when you are done with your chores, you can go to kindle and resume precisely from the place where Alexa stopped reading the book. This single tip helped in improving my reading speed and eventually in reading more books. I hope these tips will help you in your reading journey for reading more books.
-written by D.S.S.R.Anirudh
