Daily Junction.mobi portalLifestyle · June 10, 2025 · Priya Anand · 6 min
Reading more is less about willpower and more about habits, choosing the right books and removing friction. Here is how to build a reading habit, pick books you will finish, and beat the dreaded slump.
Almost everyone says they want to read more, and almost everyone has a stack of half-finished books that suggests it is harder than it sounds. The usual explanation — "I don't have time" — is rarely the real one. Reading more is mostly a matter of habit, book choice and removing friction. Get those right and you will be surprised how many books you can finish in a year without carving out a single extra hour.
The instinct is to wait for a free evening to read. But large blocks of uninterrupted time are rare, so reading keeps getting postponed. The people who read a lot are usually not finding huge stretches of time; they are reading in small, frequent bursts and treating it as a regular habit rather than a special occasion.
The maths is encouraging. Reading just ten or fifteen minutes a day adds up to a substantial number of books over a year. A few pages on a commute, during a lunch break, or before bed accumulates far faster than waiting for a perfect reading afternoon that never comes. The charity The Reading Agency, which runs reading programmes across the UK, makes the same point: small, regular reading is what builds a lasting habit.
You do not need more time to read. You need to read in the time you already waste.
Treat reading like any habit you want to stick: make it small, consistent and easy to start.
A huge amount of stalled reading comes from reading what you think you should rather than what you genuinely want to. People load up on worthy classics and dense non-fiction, then feel guilty when they bounce off them, and eventually stop reading at all.
Permission to read for pleasure is liberating. A page-turner you race through does far more for your reading habit than a celebrated doorstop you abandon on page forty. Some practical ways to choose better:
Your local library is the unsung hero here: it lets you try widely at no cost, including ebooks and audiobooks through free apps. As GOV.UK's information on libraries notes, public libraries lend far more than print, and they remove the financial risk of trying something new.
One of the simplest ways to read more is to stop thinking of reading as only sitting down with a print book. Different formats fit different moments of the day, and using all three multiplies your opportunities.
| Format | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Physical book | Deep, distraction-free reading | Not always to hand; awkward in transit |
| Ebook | Travelling light; reading anywhere | Easy to drift to other apps on the same device |
| Audiobook | Commuting, walking, chores | Easy to zone out; harder for dense material |
Audiobooks deserve special mention because they unlock time you cannot otherwise read in — walking the dog, doing the washing up, sitting in traffic. The old debate about whether listening "counts" misses the point: if the goal is to enjoy more books and finish more of them, audio is a genuine win. Many committed readers move fluidly between all three, switching to audio when their eyes are busy and back to print when they can settle in.
Here is the single most freeing rule for reading more: you are allowed to abandon a book. Many people grind unhappily through something they are not enjoying out of a sense of duty, lose all momentum, and then read nothing for weeks. The unfinished book becomes a quiet reproach that puts them off picking up anything else.
A book you are not enjoying is not a personal failing or a test of character. Life is short and there are more good books than you can ever read. A useful guideline some readers like is to give a book a fair chance — say, fifty pages or so — and then move on without guilt if it has not earned your attention. Quitting freely keeps reading a pleasure rather than a chore, which is exactly what keeps you coming back.
Even keen readers hit slumps — stretches where nothing appeals and the habit fades. Slumps are normal and almost always pass faster when you stop forcing them. Try one of these resets:
Curiosity is the renewable fuel for reading, and it is the same engine behind any kind of learning — which is why the small-and-steady approach in our guide to learning a language maps so neatly onto building a reading life. Organisations like BookTrust exist precisely because reading for pleasure, once it takes hold, tends to sustain itself.
Reading more is rarely about finding extra time and almost always about habits, choices and friction. Read in the small pockets of your day, attach the habit to something you already do, and replace some scrolling with pages.
Choose books you genuinely want to read, use every format that fits your life, and give yourself full permission to abandon what you are not enjoying. When a slump comes, change something rather than forcing it. Do that, and reading stops being a goal you feel guilty about and becomes simply part of how you spend your time.
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