I want to start liking reading but I’m finding it super hard. I’ve tried many kinds of books but can’t seem to get into them. I don’t even finish a chapter because I get distracted or make up reasons not to read. My focus doesn’t last long, and I can’t sit with a book for more than 10 minutes. I really want to change this and read more instead of scrolling on TikTok for 9 hrs a day. Can you give me some advice?
by Historical-Leading81
5 Comments
There’s no magic trick here. Pick up a book. Open it. Read the words.
Honestly, you’ve probably killed your attention span by spending more time on TikTok than people spend at a full time job. You’ll have to build it back up.
Delete TikTok. Redownload it every time you want to use it. Make it difficult to be or sucked in by things that will distract you.
Reading wise – it’s okay if you can only read bits at a time. Do that a few times a day – morning, noon and night, maybe? Set a timer to only read for a certain amount of time or a certain amount of pages.
Reward yourself afterwards! Some TikTok time, or whatever else you like doing. Positive reinforcement!
How are you reading? Physical books or E-books? I find it easier to concentrate reading e-books on my phone.
You can read non-fiction and learn about all sorts of interesting topics.
Or read fiction that conveys ideas or emotions that you find interesting. The gain is maybe abstract but at least for me it gives some sense of becoming a more “fleshed out person”.
Reading can be a sort of investment in yourself 🙂
Try and read the same time every day, and when you do don’t give yourself access to any electronics or Internet. Turn off notifications from your phone and put it out of reach. At first it’ll be hard to focus and you probably won’t read very long, but do it every day and it’ll get easier as you go. One thing you can try is setting a timer, and reading until the timer goes off, start with a short time you know you can do, and once that gets easy add five minutes until you’re reading the amount you want to read.
It’ll also help if you cut back on apps and social media overall. These things kill our attention span, but limiting our time with them, or giving ourselves boundaries around them, can help us get that attention span back.
If you have access to ebooks, try changing the font size, or even the font itself (serif vs sans serif). There’s also a dyslexia font that makes it A LOT easier for many people to read.