From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. - Groucho Marx

There can be few pleasures in life as minimal as reading a good book. I enjoy finding a quiet corner in a cafe in town and settling down to read, in between sips of Yerba maté tea that is!

Maybe though you are, as I was, finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate? To switch off your brain and focus only on that one task? In these times of e-book readers and internet access in your pocket, distractions surround us. Think about it, I bet the last time you used your computer to do some “serious work” you were also listening to music and had a couple of web pages open in the background?

Sometimes multi tasking is important and even productive for people, but for me the negatives outweigh the positives. I have decided 2011 is the year of single tasking! However, let’s get back to talking about reading and save the advantages of single-tasking for another post!

Reading is every bit as much about the process as any activity, so let’s break it down :

Selecting what to read.
Choosing a time and place.
Focus on the reading.

Selecting what to read - obviously this depends very much on personal preference but I want to share something that has given me a new love of reading, it’s a Kindle. Having recently bought one I find it makes the process of cuing up books to read simple. I can have three or four books on the go at once. Are you the kind of person who cannot walk through a bookshop without picking up two or three new reads? With a Kindle you can make a note of those books and purchase them on the Kindle store. Doing this I have reduced three metres of bookshelf space down to one tiny gadget that stores all these books and more!

I would also recommend the website www.goodreads.com it’s great for finding new books to read based on books you have already read.

Choosing a time and place - My recommendation here is to pick somewhere if possible with a nice view. Part of the enjoyment of reading comes from pausing to reflect on a passage you have read, having something interesting to look at occasionally helps the brain process what you are reading and gives a nice break for your eyes. As for a time, choose a time when you know you won’t be disturbed and schedule it in your diary as you would do for any other appointment. Enjoying reading can initially be hard work! So do whatever it takes to force yourself in these early days, then when you are more settled into the process you can be more relaxed about scheduling.

Focus on the reading - so we have got a great article to read or a book picked out, we’ve found a great place where we feel comfortable and relaxed, now all we need to do is just read right? Hopefully yes, it will be that easy, but for some it may not be enjoyable right away. As mentioned above, it may feel like work even, but thats ok. We have learnt to become multi-tasking maestros and the act of doing one thing and one thing alone can freak us out initially. I would suggest unlearning this behaviour by setting a certain amount of time for reading and then gradually increasing this period. Remember practice makes perfect!

I’d be really interested to see how/when/what other’s approach to reading is so let me know!

(Source: minimalist guide)