Hello, comrades. I’m here for your suggestions.
As the title says, I have been having a really hard time trying to read texts. I just find it very hard to concentrate on large text. I used to love reading, but all the years spent in the education system and having to read/study for lessons that I don’t really care for made me (or, most probably, my brain) dislike reading, and I still haven’t fully overcome that state of mind. I start to read a book, but I can’t keep reading for long. Also I’m easily getting distracted (surely a trait that I picked up while being on social media), so practically reading any book or long text, even if I find it really interesting or useful, gets even harder and progress may slow down to < 10 pages a day at times.
So, has anything like that ever occured to you? How did you overcome it? Thank you for reading this, comments will be appreciated.
Edit: Thank you for all the replies! It seems like many comrades went through something similar and I appreciate your replies.
gonna recommend audiobooks. being able to “read” while you do other (mindless) stuff was huge for me. dishes, driving, etc all become a little less dull when accompanied by story time
that said, i would suggest starting with fiction or something light to get you into the habit before jumping in to dense theory
Reading out loud or under my breath often helps my retain focus long enough to get stuck to a book. I know it’s working once I stop reading out loud because I want to keep reading faster.
The key trick is to create a habit. What I recommend doing is picking a specific time and place for reading every day. It doesn’t have to be much. Even if you just read a few pages, that helps start forming the habit. As long as you’re setting a realistic goal and you actually accomplish it each day, then you’ll feel good about it. This will make you want to keep doing it. Eventually it just becomes second nature where you end up going to your reading spot and doing some reading.
I also recommend starting with books where you find the style of writing engaging. For me it makes a huge difference. Some books I can read really fast, and others I struggle to finish. If you start a book that you’re not enjoying, don’t feel bad about abandoning it. Having positive reinforcement is important into creating a habit successfully. If you start feeling like it’s a chore, then you’re more likely to abandon it.
I was in an extremely similar situation. As a child I was quite a voracious reader, but over time I lost the skill to the point where, similar to you, I found reading anything for an extended time difficult. Luckily my partner is in a literary profession so I had a supportive resource I could lean on when I made the commitment to try to get back into it.
A difficulty I faced was that I tend to gravitate towards high fantasy, science fiction, and Classical/Renaissance philosophy for my reading choices and they are all huge commitments in terms of time and focus. A huge help for me was to make sure that I had a physical paper book to read. It helped to have a physical reminder to look at on the table in front of me. It helped to make it feel like I was making more measurable progress by being able to turn every completed page. It helped to be able to see my bookmark move a bit further into the book every day and feel like I was making real progress.
I chose the first Dune book as my first book as it had short chapters and I could easily commit to reading a single chapter every day. I wish I could say that there is a one size fits all answer, but the reality is that everyone is different. I’m also easily distracted, but you’ve got to find what works for you and just do it. It gets easier the more you do it, but you have to force yourself to get over the initial hump.
Start with young adult fiction! You wouldn’t go to the gym and immediately rack up to your old max, lift lighter first. I went thru a reading desert for like 5 years after leaving school, I tried banging my head against political theory and falling off over and over and over until I decided to read The Hate U Give. I blew through it, it got me into the habit of sitting down and reading words on a page, and I’ve been reading at least a book a month since.
