Best Results Organizing

Read any good books lately?

• Does the longest book you’ve read lately end with “Goodnight stars. Goodnight air. Goodnight noises everywhere?”
• Are you being mocked mercilessly by a pile of unread books on your bedside table?
• Maybe you’d like to read that popular novel before it becomes an HBO series?

Paper Doll gets it. Even for the heartiest of readers, there are seasons of life, and in some of those seasons, we aren’t reading. Sometimes, parenthood, work, or a chaotic life gets in the way. Sometimes, there’s a global pandemic giving us all the time to read we could ever want, but we just lack the motivation. (Hey, at least we’re not Burgess Meredith in the saddest episode ever of the Twilight Zone!)

We’ve covered organizing for reading time before, in 12 Tips for Organizing Your Reading Time and Organizing Your Reading Space for More Reading Time. But the world seems like it’s changed quite a bit since 2014, and it’s time to look at some new ways to make your life more reading-friendly.

10 WAYS TO ORGANIZE YOUR LIFE TO READ MORE

1) Gather your TBR collection.

TBR, or “to be read,” may have been a popular acronym previously, but I only learned of it when I started reading the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog. Early on in the quarantine, I had a surprise UPS delivery. My best friend had sent me a bookshelf from my favorite line, Origami Rack. The one she sent me is currently unavailable, but it looks like this…except mine is filled with books, with a corner of the top shelf given over to colorful Post-It® stacks and USB drives.

I was so delighted by the bookshelf, I rearranged my office space so that the bookshelf was to my right (appearing prominently in the hundreds of Zoom meetings I was about to have, dramatically improving the aesthetics of my space). I then went through every nook and cranny of my home, collecting every book I had not yet read, and I was shocked at how many unread titles I found:

• 8 novels
• 7 books about reading books
• 6 books about freelance writing
• 9 books about Jane Austen
• 5 books about diabetes
• 4 books about organizing and productivity
• 3 business books, 2 books about the history of Cornell University, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s GMorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks for Me and You, which doesn’t really fit any category. 

Honestly, I knew I had quite a few unread books, but anticipated they might all fit on one shelf. Having them all in one place, and arranging them by category, made it easier to pick something when the inspiration struck. There are only two novels left, and I’m working my way through the other titles.

Your TBR shelf may just be half a shelf, or your bedside table, or a small square of counterspace. But bringing all of your to-be-read titles together gives you a starting point.

2) Schedule your reading time.

Early during the pandemic, Mike Vardy, The Productivityist, made a short video detailing how to create a good morning routine. When he talked about having 30 minutes of reading time during and after breakfast, it caught my attention.

I have natural points in my day when I might gravitate toward pulling a book off the shelf, usually at the end of the afternoon when I’ve finished my work but am not ready for dinner. Other people naturally read before bed or on their commutes (whether traditional reading on public transportation or listening to audiobooks while driving or riding). These tend to be defaults, times when they’re unlikely to do anything else.

But Mike, like many successful readers, has a firmly-set block in his schedule. He gets up, has breakfast, and reads before any of the chaos of the day can seep in and derail him. He reads before he’s checked email, or made phone calls.

If you’re afraid you’ll get too involved in your book and miss appointments or obligations, set an alarm on your computer, phone, or watch. See if a friend or colleague would like to read at the same time! You could arrange a five-minute phone or text conversation to connect after your reading block to talk about what you’ve read. You’re far less likely to tell yourself “one more chapter…” if you know someone is waiting.

Scheduling a reading block each day doesn’t eliminate the serendipity of coming across some quiet moments where you can hug a book to your chest and get lost in a story. It just means you’re guaranteed some time in your day and space in your schedule for delighting in the written word.

3) Create physical space for reading.

Carving out time for reading is only part of the story. Do you have a place to read? I mean, in theory, you can read anywhere except the shower. I’ve been known to hold my hair dryer in one hand an a good book in another, and I have friends who read in the kitchen while they stir. (Important PSA: Don’t chop and read!)

For some of us, any chair, bed, or square of floorspace will do. If you love to read but avoid reading, you may need a reading nook that’s more conducive to your physical needs. A comfy chair situated outside of the traffic patterns of your house, natural light (or a good reading lamp), a cozy blanket, a small table to hold your phone, beverage, and glasses – doesn’t the idea of this space feel compelling?

Consider employing a currently-unused space for your reading nook, like the corner of your guest room or some open space at the top of your stairs. Basically, if there’s an area in your home that doesn’t require you to move things around to vacuum, that’s a potential reading nook.

4) Replace a habit with reading.

Nancy Haworth, a friend and colleague in my mastermind group (a small group for accountability) shared the following as one of her monthly goals: “Focus on reading books more, rather than getting sucked into social media and news online.”

For the past two months, she’s been reporting what she’s read and how much progress she’s made, both on avoiding the dumpster fire that is the world these days (both in the news and on social media) and on specific books.

This approach would be tough for me. During each transition between activities, from email to writing, or from phone calls to deep work, I instinctively click on news sites to get that dopamine hit. But a recent weekend, during which my schedule was unusually devoid of obligations, I read a 468-page book, and I accomplished it in large part because I avoided turning to news sites and social media.

Are there other habits you’d like to break, or at least bend? If you tend to snack in the mid-afternoon, could moving to your reading nook instead of the kitchen help you accomplish that? If you’ve been working from home instead of the office, chances are that you spend more time sitting at your desk – there’s no cake in the break room or conversations over coffee with colleagues, and there’s no rush to leave work to deal with a commute. If you’re giving the office a little too much of yourself, a few 15-minute reading breaks could be just what you need.

5) Read with others.

Usually, the solitary experience of reading is a comfort. When you read (or reread) a favorite novel, it sometimes seems like you’ve become a quiet (and pleasantly ignored) minor character with a front-row seat to the goings-on. But other books, particularly non-fiction titles focused on topics like business, psychology, history, or current events, create an environment where you want other voices in the room, other people to help you debate whether the author is right, or tease out the true meaning of a paragraph.

Partner with a friend or colleague. It’s like the tiniest possible book club, but arranging with a friend to read a book means you always have something fresh to talk about. You don’t even have to read the same book.

Remember when Rachel and Joey traded recommendations? She read The Shining and he read Little Women?

(Joey’s guidance about putting too-scary books in the freezer isn’t the worst reading advice I’ve heard!) Once, my friend Mark and I simultaneously read one another’s recommendations. I read Great Expectations (meh) and he read Pride & Prejudice (and developed a teeny crush on Mr. Darcy).

Join a book club. Sure, 2020 doesn’t lend itself to attending the typical wine-and-cheese or coffee-and-cake in-person book clubs, but (hopefully) 2020 won’t last forever. Until then, there are all sorts of online book clubs. Book Riot’s How To Join a Book Club Online in 2020 is a good start if you want to share a reading experience with a large group of people reading the same thing, and Time Magazine covered 10 Virtual Book Clubs You Can Join Now.

Or start your own book club. The advantage of starting your own club is that you can set the rules – anything from “No novels by Ernest Hemingway!” to “Only books by left-handed authors!” – and invite like-minded friends. One person can take a professorial lead, members can take turns presenting, or discussion can be a free-for-all. 

Friend of the blog Erin Doland, author of Never Too Busy to Cure Clutter and formerly of the Unclutterer blog, recently gathered a gaggle of friends for a virtual non-fiction book club, with discussion in a private Facebook group. The first title was The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King.

Once the world can be social again, NPR’s Life Kit has a great post on How To Start a Book Club That Actually Meets. 

6) Be part of a cultural experience.

Sometimes, a book club is a bit too much of a commitment. Maybe you’re an introvert. Or perhaps you’re just not that interested in what others have to say about a reading experience that feels so personal. You can still be part of something larger than yourself.

Have you ever had a book that you just couldn’t tackle, no matter how hard (or how many times) you tried? I’ve given Anna Karenina my best efforts, from my teen years to now in my (muffled static obscuring actual age) years. For (many others) it’s Moby Dick. For them, there’s an audio experience called the Moby Dick Big Read.

The Great American Novel may be great, but it can be daunting. In 2011, a group of artists, writers, musicians, scientists and academics came together for a symposium, sharing their fascination with whales, and it turned into a big fish tale! In other words, you can listen (via Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app) to the 135 chapters (plus the epilogue), told by Tilda Swinson, Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, and many others. If this book has been your own white whale and this finally helps you finish it, you can thank me later. Just don’t call me Ishmael.

The National Endowment for the Arts has its own Big Read, an initiative for exposing readers to new genres and ideas and challenges their current tastes in literature. The NEA Big Read sponsors 84 community reading programs, each designed around a single NEA Big Read selection. If your community or library system isn’t participating, you can still pick one of the 25 books in the NEA online library and avail yourself of the discussion questions and multi-media resources.

One City One Book and similarly named “community reads” projects have been operating for more than two decades, with libraries and civic groups encouraging all the people of one community to read the same book. Check your public library system’s website to see what community reading experiences are available to encourage you to read more. 

Next time, in part 2, we’ll look at more ways to organize your life for more reading opportunities:

• How to get book recommendations so you can be enthusiastic about reading
• Why (and how) to change reading formats
• The secret to remembering what you’ve read (and liked)
• How to drive your reading mojo with challenges
• The type of book to rev your reading engine
• …and how to develop an appetite for books to better yourself.