Recently, my friend and New Orleans Mom contributor Joey wrote about her newfound love for audiobooks. I read that blog with a fiery jealousy, thinking to myself, I want that.
I’ve also written about my own experience with books– how avid a reader I was when I was younger; how I’m still a voracious reader, but how very slowly I read now. I so deeply wish I could switch on an audiobook and get my reading in while tackling other chores and errands.
But for whatever reason, I just can’t swing it. I can’t multitask– if I’m trying to do two things at once, something is absolutely not getting my full attention. If I’m working or folding laundry or doing some other project, the only TV that can be on in the background must be reruns of a show I don’t need to follow along with. I can’t listen to music while I work, or my work will suffer while I get swept up in the songs. I can’t even listen to podcasts while driving, because I’m concentrating so much on driving that I won’t retain a single word of the podcast.
My brain doesn’t hold onto audio the way it does to visuals. I learned this the hard way in college when lecture-only classes felt like I’d just spent an hour listening to white noise. I had to write everything down so I could read it and retain it later. I still do this– everything I need to remember needs to be written by my own hand. I have a cabinet full of notebooks at work, dozens of to-do lists a week, and planners full of daily notes and reminders.
Listening to an audiobook, whether while multitasking or on its own, means that I won’t remember anything about the story. If I want to remember what I read, I’ve got to read it with my eyes.
So for someone who wants to read more but can’t listen to audiobooks, how can that reading be reclaimed?
Scroll Less; Read More
For me, it means prioritizing my reading over other hobbies, and when I did some hard soul-searching, I realized my most time-consuming hobby wasn’t my scrapbooking, writing, or geocaching– it was phone doom-scrolling. Now I know that if I want to read more, I have to scroll less. It takes very little brain power at the end of a long day to scroll the stress away, but those minutes suddenly rack up and I lose an hour or two doing nothing when I could be reading.
Always Bring a Book
I also got back into the habit of taking my book with me everywhere. I used to do this all the time as a kid, teen, and young adult, but stopped when I became a mom and started lugging around all my kids’ stuff. Now I pack my book in my purse to read in carpool line, during a lunch break, or in other odd moments whenever I have time. I could spend the six random minutes waiting for my kids to get out of school on my phone– or I could read.
Read What You WANT To Read!
To set myself up for success, I started choosing only books I really wanted to read. I fell into a frustrating habit a few years ago when, during some family budgeting, I vowed to stop buying books and to only read the old ones on my shelves that had been sitting around for ages. Turns out, I wasn’t reading those books because I didn’t want to read those books, and forcing myself to read them took forever. I also stopped reading classics because I felt like I should as someone who loves reading. Now I ask for enough books for my birthday and Christmas to last me throughout the year, or I shop secondhand book sales to stock up.
Don’t Pressure Yourself
Finally, I stopped committing to a reading challenge on Goodreads because it only added stress to my life. I tend to get obsessive over goals and challenges, and while I’m still itching to plug in a number and read my way to success, it just wasn’t working for me anymore. I still log onto Goodreads to rate, review, and track how many books I read, but I’m not trying to achieve a certain number. I’m just trying to read.
Reading is a personal and enjoyable hobby– so whether you’re into audiobooks, ebooks, borrowed library books, or personal copies like me, read what you want when you can!