How to build a reading habit that lasts

Most people who want to read more already know how to read. What they lack is a slot in the day where reading reliably happens. Building a habit is about creating that slot and protecting it until it runs on its own.

1. Start smaller than you think you should

Ambitious goals feel motivating on day one and fragile on day nine. Choose an amount you could manage on your most tired, busiest day: 10 to 15 minutes, or a handful of pages. You can always read more; the point of the goal is to make “I didn’t read today” rare.

Small adds up. At the median pace measured in Readaily (about 28 pages an hour), 15 minutes a day is roughly 2,500 pages a year.

2. Tie reading to something you already do

Habits form around cues: a time, a place or an action that comes right before the behaviour. Psychologists call the plan “implementation intentions”, phrased as when X happens, I will do Y. A large body of studies has found that this simple if-then planning makes people noticeably more likely to follow through (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).

For reading, that might be:

• After I make my coffee in the morning, I read for 10 minutes.
• When I get into bed, I read before I touch my phone.
• When the train leaves my station, I open my book.

Pick one cue, and keep it the same every day.

3. Take the phone out of the equation

The phone competes with the book for the same few minutes. A widely cited 2017 study reported that the mere presence of a smartphone reduced available cognitive capacity (Ward et al., 2017); later replications found the effect smaller or absent (Ruiz Pardo & Minda, 2022), so treat it as a reasonable precaution rather than a law. Practically, it helps to put the phone face down and out of reach, and to silence notifications for the length of the session.

4. Track minutes, not books

Counting finished books gives you feedback a few times a month at best. Counting minutes gives you feedback every day, and it is fair to every kind of book: a dense 600-page history and a 200-page novel both get the same credit for the same effort. A simple calendar of reading days is enough; seeing an unbroken week is its own small reward.

5. Expect about two months, and forgive the missed days

In the best-known study of everyday habit formation (Lally et al., 2010), people repeated a chosen behaviour daily in the same context. On average it took 66 days for it to feel automatic, with a huge spread, from 18 to 254 days. Two findings are worth remembering:

• It takes longer than the popular “21 days”. Plan for a couple of months.
• A missed day didn’t matter much. What derails habits is the story “I missed a day, so I’ve failed”, not the missed day itself.

6. Always have the next book ready

The most fragile moment of a reading habit is the gap between two books. Decide what comes next before you finish the current one, so the slot never sits empty.

How Readaily fits in

Readaily was designed around these ideas: a small daily goal in minutes or pages, one reminder at the time you choose, a reading timer that records each session, and a streak that resets quietly instead of scolding you when you miss a day.

References

• Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.
• Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009.
• Ruiz Pardo, A. C., & Minda, J. P. (2022). Reexamining the “brain drain” effect: A replication of Ward et al. (2017). Acta Psychologica, 230, 103717.
• Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one’s own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 2(2), 140–154.