How to Get Out of a Reading Slump

My ruthless approach to reading you can adopt in 2024

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I am coming out of a multi-year reading slump.

It doesn’t feel good to say that, but if you’re in a similar boat right now, I hope it makes you feel less alone.

A slump brought on, in large part, because of yearly book challenges I set for myself. Let me explain.

Like many avid readers, I used to set a goal for the number of books I’d like to read by the end of the year. I always set it high enough that it was a challenge for me, but not so high that it was unattainable.

Here’s where I went wrong and how I fixed it.

Flawed Metrics: Why The Standard Yearly Book Challenges No Longer Work for Me

By measuring the number of books read each year as my main metric of reading success, here’s what happened:

• I prioritized shorter books. If I have to read one book a week, a 200-pager is much more valuable than an 800-pager.
• It made me look for easy reads. I love non-fiction books, but they take me a long time to get through compared to a captivating fantasy or thriller novel. On the same token, some of the most beautiful books are written in artistic prose…