The Key to Sticking to Your Reading Plan

Regular, disciplined, meditative, thoughtful reading can enhance your mind and enrich your soul.

As Joshua Sowin writes on the Desiring God blog,

“Reading is one of the best ways to develop our minds. It can help us to know God and ourselves, gain vicarious experience, increase our perception and imagination, train our minds to think critically and logically, and teach us self-discipline.” [Emphasis mine]

No question about it.

A question that does come up when developing a reading plan is what reader Bamboo Forest asked in reply to my last post:

“Is it important, do you think, to stick with a single book at a time, and not alternate between a few?”

Fellow reader and commenter Zoe Westhof responded:

“Although I think reading one book at a time is useful for concentration, I sometimes need the variety. For example, I’m now reading a book on the Khmer Rouge, which does not make for a good bedtime story. So, I keep a second book on my night table for reading right before bed.”

I’ll give my view later in this post, but I think whether you read one book at a time or several, the key is to read something regularly, a commitment that many people find hard to keep.

Sowin adds:

“We make time to watch television and surf the Internet for the latest triviality, but we can’t seem to make the time to sit down and read for an hour.”

It takes effort. As pastor and author John Piper writes:

“The ability to read does not come intuitively. It must be taught. And learning to read with understanding is a life-long labor.”

Read books, blogs, newspapers, magazines. Read the back of your cereal box. Read the product brochures in your doctor’s waiting room. Read whatever you can get your hands on.

Some Advice for Sticking to a Reading Plan

Al Mohler, a theologian and radio show host, offers the following advice on developing and sticking to a reading plan, based on his experience:

“Maintain regular reading projects. I strategize my reading in six main categories: Theology, Biblical Studies, Church Life, History, Cultural Studies, and Literature. I have some project from each of these categories going at all times. I collect and gather books for each project, and read them over a determined period of time. This helps to discipline my reading, and also keeps me working across several disciplines….

Read all the titles written by some authors. Choose carefully here, but identify some authors whose books demand your attention. Read all they have written and watch their minds at work and their thought in development. No author can complete his thoughts in one book, no matter how large….

Allow yourself some fun reading, and learn how to enjoy reading by reading enjoyable books.”

Mohler has some helpful thoughts. His approach certainly works for him, but I disagree with his advocacy of reading several books at a time. He can do it and I’m sure many others can too, but I find that picking one book, committing myself to reading it until it’s done, and concentrating on that one book alone encourages me to be more self-disciplined by focusing all my mental energy toward one central argument or story.

However, regardless of whether you choose to read one book at a time or several, here’s the key (and where I do agree with Mohler) to sticking to your plan so that you can reap the benefits that disciplined reading offers: read stuff you truly enjoy.

Don’t get on your reading plan and start reading something you find really boring and try to plod on just for the exercise. It may backfire. Read authors or subjects that really excite you and your natural enthusiasm for what you’re reading will enhance the experience so that you’ll continue regularly reading and also better retain what you’ve read.