Here are some tips and tricks that you can borrow to read books every day:

1. Always do your duties on time because if you fall behind with important issues you will have no time to do any reading. If you somehow manage to read, you are unlikely to enjoy it when important stuff is at the back of your mind.

2. Have a book with you all the time. This is a must. The idea is to read a book, so you must have one to do that.

3. Read multiple books of different genres at the same time as this has been shown to be the best way to read more books without getting confused. When you are tired read the less challenging books.

4. Read everywhere: in the queue, in the toilet, on the bus, on the airplane. Read while you are waiting to pick up your kids from school. In fact, read everywhere you have enough space to lift your a book to meet your eyes. As Stephen King said, “The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows.”

5. Take your book with you everywhere in whatever form suits you. You are more likely to pick it up when you have it with you and have a few minutes of spare time instead of doing something less beneficial.

6. Reduce friction.

This means make it easy for yourself to want to read. For example, you are more likely to read in bed when a book is at arm’s length than when you have to get up, go to the next room and select a book. So always have a book on your nightstand waiting to be consumed.

7. If you are the extreme kind of guy, consider removing distractions from your surrounding, i.e. remove anything that is more likely to attract you than the book you know you should be reading. Remove games from your phone, mute your phone, your watch, or any device that has notifications that keep taking your attention from your book. You cannot concentrate when friends keep pinging you on Facebook, Twitter, or Whatsapp suggesting more exciting things to do than reading a book. However, you must be strong. They say, “You reap what you sow” for a reason.  As Jim Rohan said, “You have to do what others don’t, to achieve what others won’t.”

8. Make reading a habit.

Forget about willpower and start working on your reading habits. Here is a blog post I wrote some time ago about how to make reading a habit that sticks.  Understand that forming a habit requires lots of repetitions over a long period of time in order for it to become second nature.

9. Choose the kind of books that excite you.

Books that make you wake up early in the morning just because you can’t wait to turn over the next page. There are endless books out there. Choose wisely and you will read more instead of struggling through something that is of no interest. In fact, these are the kind of books that will break your reading streak and turn you back into the old you who didn’t appreciate the benefits of reading. These types of books are your enemy. Keep your distance.

10. Don’t let the price of books stop you from reading.

There are many ways of finding books to read. There is the old and tried way of visiting your local library. Or you could gather local book lovers like you and join BoocShare.com to share books locally. If you are the type who doesn’t plan what to do in advance or don’t really care what you read when, there are places online where you can hunt for free books, e.g. Open Library.

11. Beware of people who keep coming to you to ask for favours that you spend your time fulfilling while they spend theirs reading and learning more stuff that you don’t know anything about. You can save a lot of time to read books every day by doing the necessary and eliminating the unnecessary.

12. Hang around people who read or at least, people who spend their time constructively. As Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with.” If your friends love to read, then you are more likely to read. If they would rather go and have a beer, then you are more likely to succumb to peer pressure that you so honestly thought you had left behind in High School.

13. To read and understand more, you need to rest more.

It’s that simple. You could sleep less to read more, but that’s a temporary solution that you are likely to regret. You cannot cheat your organism. When it needs to rest, it will rest regardless of who you are, where you are, or what you want to do.

14. We are living in times where there are many ways to consume books.

There are paper books, kindles and audio books. Choose what works for you and try to reduce friction to make it easier to find more time to read. I am the kind of guy who likes to see the letters when reading, so I read paper books and ebooks on my electronic devices. However, I totally understand the advantages of listening to audiobooks in situations where I need my hands to be free. Audiobooks are the perfect medium when vacuuming, cooking or doing other chores where you can multi-task. It’s not about the medium, it’s all about doing whatever it takes to read more books every day.  To find out if listening to audiobooks is just the same as reading, check out this article.

15. The average adult spends 3 hours in front of the television every day and then says it’s impossible to read every day. It’s all a matter of priority if you ask me. One hour less of TV can save you time to read tens of pages per day. Start small and before you know it, you will be reading a book per week or more. As Nelson Mandela said, “It seems impossible until it’s done.”

16. If you have kids, reading to them every day is a great way to spend quality time with them and also add some pages to your daily reading. As the kids grow you get to read more and more challenging books. So don’t blame the kids for not finding time to read every day. And there are some side benefits to that. Even Albert Einstein said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” I don’t know about you, but I usually pay attention to what Einstein said.

17. Avoid trying to be a superhero.

Don’t do things that you are not good at if you don’t have to. If reading is more valuable to you than the task you are spending time on, find a specialist who can do the job faster while saving you time and money. Think about this next time you will be trying to fix that lawnmower via trial and error. Besides avoiding injuries and spending time in hospitals, you could even find some time to read.

18. If you want to find more time to read books every day, you need to get the time from somewhere else. This means starting one activity requires stopping doing another, less important activity. So choose what you do wisely. This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes that I came across somewhere online. “Anyone who has time to read is not reading nearly enough.”

19. Apply the “Don’t break the chain” method. The idea is that once you start reading books every day, you should continue doing so as long as possible. Sometimes you will read a few pages per day and on other days you will read a whole book. Read. Every. Single. Day. Don’t let anything stop you. Here is a resource, if you want to read more about the  “Don’t break the chain method ” method that was popularized by Jerry Seinfield.

20. Last, but not least. Join a book club or reading challenge like the “Read Around The World Challenge” to monitor your reading progress, interact with other book lovers and get book recommendations from those in the know. Participating in a reading challenge is one of the best ways to make reading books every day a habit.