I am a software engineer in India. That sentence to many people would be very telling. Let me break it down for you — being a software engineer means I have the flexibility to work from home, which in turn means I never truly log off. My personal phone has more notifications from Teams and Outlook than Whatsapp at any given point in the day. The location also implies I work in a country where unlike our counterparts in the west, there is no distinction between work and life. Add a dash of anxiety to this concoction and what you get is a person who ends up working 60–70 hours a week give or take. So, one question I often get asked is how do I find time to read.
Reading has always been a love of mine. For a long time, until mid of last year — I consumed fiction exclusively and majority of them were fantasy. I own many non-fiction DNF books (if you discount the “You can win” and “Chicken soup for the ____ soul” series I devoured when I was young). My rationale was simple, I read to escape and non-fiction books are too close to home to actually give me the feeling of escapism. Considering a lot of other content I consume always revolve around productivity, I knew I had to start delving into the world of non-fiction soon. And last year, I finally fell into a groove that let me have the best of all worlds when I finally discovered different ways and techniques to consume books. But, I digress, today I wanted to talk about how I find time to read books and what methods I use for the same.
Before I delve deeper into how I consume books, I would like to mention a couple of behavior changes I introduced in the last year as well. I have moved away from “finish one book before picking up the next” behavior. I now have multiple parallel books that I consume. I also try my best to finish a book, but if it does not spark interest despite trying multiple times, I let it go.
Non-fiction in the morning — Building on the advice from the first non-fiction book I completed last year — “Atomic Habits”, I read a non-fiction book with my morning tea every day. I love having tea but used to rush the process in order to not “waste” time. Now, I have a reason to slow down and enjoy the process. And surprisingly, I look forward to this reading session, even though the content is something that I used to dread earlier. The pace of reading these books is definitely not as fast as my fiction books, but I have realized this is the only way I can process and apply the content.
Fiction the rest of the day — As mentioned before, fiction has been the one true love of my life so far and it refreshes my mind more than any movie or show could ever do. I always have a fiction book in rotation. If my work life is hectic, I choose something very light, like a YA or romance. If life is good otherwise or I am on a holiday, I choose fantasy or more hard-hitting books that consume you mentally. I sometimes end up with two fictions on rotation, especially if one of them is a physical book.
An audiobook for times when I can’t read— This has been the latest addition to my routine. I never thought listening to books would be something I would do or enjoy. While I am blessed to not have a long commute to work (or in the times of Corona, NO commute time at all), I still found a gap in my day to day life when my mind was free but it was impossible for me to read. This usually is while doing physical work — exercise, folding clothes, cooking, cleaning, etc. I used to rely on YouTube videos but it just wasn’t cutting it anymore. So, I tried Audible for the trial period. And here we are, I have finally succumbed and bought a subscription. My favorite audiobook genres are something that I would never pick up to read but something I still wanted to. Memoirs or incredibly long books perfectly fit these criteria. I have already knocked down two memoirs (Mindy Kaling and Amy Poehler) and I finally read(!) “A Suitable Boy”. I am currently listening to “Seriously… I’m Kidding” by Ellen and it is a hilarious read to consume when I am out and about.
Now, coming to how I like my books. While I love my physical books and usually try to keep one in rotation, nobody can deny the ease of e-books. I do not have a favorite for the non-fiction reads since they are usually time and place-bound for me. But for the fiction reads, eBooks are way easier to handle. As someone who reads when waiting in line for lunch or for a friend to show up or when walking to the bus bay, ebooks just make more sense. So, while physical books are a must during travel and sometimes otherwise, I have made a subconscious move to ebooks.
PS: I have to thank James Clear’s Atomic Habits for helping me identify and cultivate these book behaviors (also one of the leaders in my org who recommended me this tiny but powerful book).
Vani