How do you read deeply when life is crazy? That’s a great question, and one that I get almost every day on Facebook or from listeners of my podcast.
If you want to read deeply, I’ve found that the hardest part for most people is just getting started. Once you pour yourself a hot coffee and crack the spine, you’re off to the races. The problem is getting that to happen.
The Read Deeply Problem
There’s a war that takes place in our head every day. It sounds something like this:
You: I want to read today.
Your brain: Great idea! But first, we need to do XYZ.
You: Oh, you’re right, brain. Goodness. I better put this book down and work on my to-do list.
You feel in your heart how badly you want to sit down and spend time with a great book, but you don’t. Trust me, it happens to all of us. Getting started is always the hardest part of anything, be it reading a book, weeding the garden, or cooking dinner tonight – but once you chop that onion, you’re excited because you’re not eating cardboard pizza again!
Make Reading Easier
That’s why you have to make getting started easy. Don’t build it up. Sure, if you’re going to read Jane Eyre or Sapines, you want to dig in, maybe take some notes and think, but now you feel as if you need an entire afternoon of undisturbed silence to give your book the attention it deserves. Who has undisturbed silence? Not me. That means the book is never going to get opened.
Instead, let yourself read just one paragraph as your kids scream in the background for more ketchup and the dog barks at your plant as the air condition jiggles its leaves again. Because if you do, then you’ll have started, and once you get started, it oddly feels so much easier to keep going.
Until tomorrow, read slowly – take notes – apply the ideas.
-Eddy
