Reading habit tracker

Most people who want to read more already like reading. What gets in the way isn't interest, it's the gap between books, the evenings that disappear into a phone, and the feeling that reading needs an hour of quiet you never seem to have. A daily reading habit closes those gaps by making reading something small that happens every day, rather than something big that happens on holiday.

Pages, not hours

"Read more" has no finish line, so you can never tick it off. A fixed daily amount can be ticked off, and that's what makes it a habit.

Twenty pages is a good default. It's about twenty to thirty minutes for most books — short enough to fit into an ordinary day, long enough that you actually get somewhere. Twenty pages a day is roughly a book every couple of weeks, without ever feeling like a project.

If twenty feels like a lot right now, start with ten, or even one. On a bad day, one page still counts. The point in the first few weeks is to become someone who opens a book every day; the number of pages will look after itself once that's settled.

Some people prefer minutes to pages, especially with dense or technical books where twenty pages might take an hour. Either works. Pick one and keep it the same.

Find the reading slot in your day

Reading needs a moment that already exists. The ones that tend to work:

• In bed, before the light goes off. The classic, and a good swap for scrolling. Put the book on your pillow in the morning so it's the first thing you see at night.
• With your morning coffee. Ten pages before the day starts, before anyone needs anything from you.
• On the commute. If you travel by train or bus, this is found time — the book is already in your bag.
• At lunch. Twenty minutes away from your desk and your screen.

Pick one slot and read there every day. You can read at other times too, but the slot is where the habit lives.

Make the book easier to reach than the phone

Reading competes with the phone, and the phone is always closer. Shift the odds:

• Keep the book where you'll be. On the bedside table, the kitchen counter, in your bag. A book on a shelf in another room doesn't get read.
• Leave the phone out of reach at reading time. Across the room, or charging somewhere else. If you read on your phone, put it in a mode that only shows your reading app.
• Always know what's next. Keep a short list of books you want to read. The days between finishing one book and starting the next are where most reading habits stall.

When you stop enjoying it

A reading habit usually breaks on a book, not a day. You get stuck in something slow or dutiful, you stop wanting to pick it up, and a week later you've stopped reading altogether.

Give yourself permission to quit books. Fifty pages is a fair trial; if you're still dreading it, put it down and start something you actually want to read. Rereading an old favourite is fine. So is a thriller after a heavy history book. The habit matters more than the reading list.

Tracking your reading habit

A reading tracker doesn't need to be a spreadsheet of titles and ratings. Tick the day when you've hit your pages, and let the streak show you the rhythm. If you read and forget to mark it, fill the day in later — the record is there to be accurate, not to catch you out.

Keep a separate list of the books you finish if you like; a note beside your habits works well for that. But the daily tick is what keeps the reading going. If you miss a day, the one rule worth keeping is to never miss two in a row. For more on making any habit stick, see how to build a habit that actually sticks.

Start today

Add "Read 20 pages" to the free habit tracker — or your own number — and tick off today once you've read. There's nothing to download and no account needed; sign in later if you want the same streak on your phone and your laptop.