Why Most People Struggle to Read Consistently
Reading feels like one of those habits that’s easy to want and hard to maintain. Life fills up fast, and books end up sitting on nightstands collecting dust while social media and streaming services absorb the hours instead.
The good news is that reading more books in a year doesn’t require a personality overhaul or massive schedule changes. It mostly comes down to a handful of practical shifts in how you approach the habit.
Start With a Realistic Goal
One of the biggest mistakes people make is setting an ambitious number — say, 50 or 100 books — without any real plan to get there. When progress stalls, the whole goal collapses.
A better approach is to work backward from a number that genuinely fits your life:
- If you can read for 20 minutes a day, that’s roughly one book per month, or 12 per year.
- If you can manage 30–40 minutes, you’re looking at 20 or more depending on the books you choose.
- Shorter books and audiobooks count. There’s no rule that says only 400-page hardcovers are legitimate.
Setting a goal you can actually hit builds momentum. Momentum is what keeps you going past February.
Make Reading the Default Activity
The biggest reading lever most people haven’t pulled is substitution. Instead of trying to add reading time to an already packed day, replace something low-value with it.
Think about the moments where you’re already doing something passive:
- Waiting in a line or lobby
- Commuting by train or bus
- Winding down before sleep
- Eating lunch alone
These aren’t big windows, but 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there adds up to well over an hour across a week. The key is having a book — physical or digital — already in hand before those moments arrive.
Remove as Much Friction as Possible
Friction kills habits. If your book is buried under a pile of stuff on your desk, or your e-reader needs charging, or you can’t remember where you left off, you’ll reach for your phone instead every single time.
A few ways to reduce friction:
- Keep a physical book somewhere obvious — on your kitchen table, on your desk, in your bag.
- Sync your e-reader or reading app across devices so you can pick up wherever you are.
- Use a bookmark. It sounds trivial, but spending 30 seconds searching for your page is enough of a barrier to derail the habit.
- Keep a second, lighter book for when your main read isn’t accessible.
The easier you make it to just open a book, the more often you will.
Give Yourself Permission to Quit Bad Books
A lot of people get stuck. They’re slogging through a book that isn’t working for them, but they feel guilty about not finishing it.
This is one of the most underrated obstacles to reading more. When a book becomes a chore, you stop reading altogether rather than face another session with something you’re not enjoying.
The fix is simple: quit freely. If a book hasn’t grabbed you after 50 pages, move on. Life is too short and the list of great books is too long. Finishing every book you start is not a virtue — reading consistently is.
Use Audiobooks Strategically
Audiobooks are legitimate reading, and they open up time that print simply can’t access.
- Commuting by car: this is probably the single best audiobook window most people have.
- Exercise: running, walking, or gym sessions pair well with audiobooks.
- Household chores: cooking, cleaning, and folding laundry are perfect for listening.
Audiobooks won’t work for everyone or every type of book. Dense nonfiction with charts and diagrams is harder to absorb by ear. But for narrative nonfiction, memoirs, and most fiction, the audio experience is excellent. Combining print and audio for the same book is also an effective technique if you want deeper retention.
Track Your Reading (Even Loosely)
Tracking what you’ve read creates a feedback loop that helps maintain the habit. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
Some options:
- Goodreads is the most popular tool for this — you can set a yearly goal and log books as you finish them.
- A simple list in a notes app works just as well if you’d rather keep it private.
- A physical reading journal lets you jot down thoughts on each book, which some people find deepens their engagement.
Seeing a list of finished books grow over the year is surprisingly motivating. It also makes it easier to reflect on what kinds of books you actually enjoy and what you should read next.
Choose Books You’re Genuinely Excited About
This one sounds obvious, but it’s worth saying plainly. You’ll read faster and more consistently when you care about what you’re reading.
Don’t read books because you feel like you should. Don’t force yourself through classics that leave you cold just to say you’ve read them.
A few ways to find books you’ll actually want to open:
- Ask friends and colleagues what they’ve read recently that genuinely surprised them.
- Browse “best of” lists for specific genres you enjoy, not just general bestseller lists.
- Read the first few pages before committing — most booksellers and libraries let you do this.
- Follow one or two book recommendation newsletters or blogs in a genre you already like.
Build a Simple Reading Routine
Habit research consistently shows that tying a new behavior to an existing routine dramatically improves follow-through. Reading is no different.
Pick one anchor point in your day — morning coffee, lunch break, or pre-sleep wind-down — and make reading part of that ritual every day. It doesn’t need to be long; 15 to 20 minutes is enough.
Over a full year, reading more books in a year is less about discipline than it is about design. When the environment supports the habit and the books are ones you actually want to read, consistency tends to follow on its own.
The people who read a lot aren’t necessarily more motivated or disciplined than everyone else. They’ve just built a setup that makes reading more books in a year the path of least resistance.