How to make time for reading!

Here’s an easy way to organise and make time for all that business-y reading you want to do but don’t have time for!

Do you find it tricky to get the time to READ? I do! And it’s not that I don’t love reading. I do! I do!

I sign up to LOTS of newsletters, and blogs and I buy a ton of books and I could quite easily spend all day reading and…….well, it’s just so hard to make the time to read any of it! What with a big work-y to-do list and managing what sometimes feels like a small army but is actually only four children,  ‘reading’ hours are few and far between.

Anyhoo because I DO think reading is important, I’ve worked out a way to make it happen. Want to know more? Here’s how I do it!

1 The Reading Hour

This sounds mildly decadent and totally impossible in a busy schedule but I’ve now found myself a ‘reading hour’! More on when I do my hour coming up…but – goodness – setting aside an hour is magic.! You’d be surprised at how long an hour actually is when the only thing you need to do is read! And if you’ve got all the stuff ready that you want to read it’s super-easy to get through a LOT!

2 I only ‘read’ in my Reading Hour

OK, so this took a bit of discipline as I am a BIG one for getting distracted by stuff that lands in my inbox or that I trip over on the internet. But I’ve mastered it! So now I save up all my reading and only look at it in my ‘reading hour’ and SHAZAM it’s made my days soooooo much more efficient!

Tip: It took me about a month to get into the habit of not-reading-at-other-times, so stick with it!

3 I have a READ notebook in Evernote and I send everything there

As I mentioned here, I have a notebook set up in Evernote called ‘Read’. I send all my ‘read’ emails, newsletters etc straight there plus if I spot something interesting over on another website I either paste the link into my READ notebook or I clip it with Evernote clipper.

Tip: There’s a VERY easy way to send all your reading stuff to your dedicated READ notebook in Evernote: just change the subject of your email to @notebookname before you forward it and it automatically pops straight to that notebook. Hurrah! My notebook is called READ so I just forward all my reading with @READ as the subject line.

Popping all your reading into a READ notebook is super-clever because when you get to your Reading Hour it’s all in there ready and waiting for you!

TIP: If you’re a bit vague about Evernote these notes might help

4 I also use Unroll.me

Unroll.me is an app thingo which you use to send newsletters and stuff straight to an Unroll.me folder in your email rather than have them clutter up your inbox. I use Unroll. me for tons of newsletters so once a day I look through it and forward anything I want to read to my READ folder in Evernote.

TIP: Unroll. me is fabulous but…..I have accidentally unrolled some important things  and missed them. Oops!  So if you’re going to use Unroll. me just make sure you check what’s in your Unroll. me folder often!

5 I do my Reading Hour in the evening

This was a big thing for me. For a long time I’ve spent a few hours in the evening working after the kids have gone to bed. But you know what? The evenings are not the greatest time for me to do good work! I’m a morning person and am quite hopeless after dinner!

So rather than spend my evenings doing not-very-good-work, I now I spend that time having my Reading Hour! Ta-da!

Tip: When you’ve read nothing all day and  saved it up for Reading Hour you won’t feel at all bad reading instead of ‘working’!

6 I clean out my READ notebook at the end of Reading Hour

Just a bit of housekeeping! I clean out my Evernote READ notebook when I’ve read the articles. If I want to save them for some reason, I move them into another notebook. Why? Well it keeps my READ notebook nice and clean and unmuddled!

Over to you!

What do you think of having a Reading Hour?! When do you read?

♡More♡

If you’d like some curated reading, I pop together five articles which I’ve found and loved each week and I publish them here.

PLUS:This is another in the how-I-make-time series! It’s stuff I’ve been practising to get more out of my day! I think you’ll love if if you’re a busy solo or home based business owner TOO! If you don’t want to miss a tip you can get them all in our weekly FREE Snacks email!

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