As I have become busier, I have had to become more intentional about the time I choose to spend reading. I crudely estimate that I read for five hours per day. This is based on recall of a single day’s reading practice. It is difficult to incorporate certain ubiquitous and pervasive kinds of reading, such as reading road signs. Still, I have tried to consider my reading broadly. This incorporates an hour and a half of academic reading at my desk after dinner, half an hour of reading print before bed for leisure, two hours reading on the internet, and even an hour of reading during morning exercise. Most of the variability in the amount of time I spend reading comes from online reading. Otherwise, each activity has a daily scheduled time, place, and duration. While finding time can be messy, I find that a constrained timetable has the effect of reducing reading time to whatever one intentionally carves out.
My most structured and consistent opportunity for reading comes during morning exercise. A novel allows me to find enjoyment in the slow, tedious, and often uncomfortable practice of stretching, warming up, and engaging in steady state cardiovascular exercise. By combining these activities, I have considerably increased both the amount of time I spend exercising and the amount of time I spend reading. The nature of this increase goes beyond simply doubling my time by doubly layering my practices. I can justify more time spent reading for entertainment because I am incorporating a highly productive activity: exercise. Similarly, I can tolerate more time spent exercising because I have made the practice more stimulating and enjoyable. Furthermore, exciting passages in a novel may inspire increases in speed or intensity of exercise. In enabling physical output, there is a clear synergistic link between reading and the body.
This type of early morning distracted reading has major effects on what and how I read. Nowhere is it truer that the space and time of reading are part of reading itself. In devoting a large part of my focus to exercise or any other activity, I am able to devote less focus to reading. This informs my choice of genre: simple page-turner novels and other comfortable reading. I choose novels that will keep me entertained and distracted while requiring less attention to follow along. The format of my novels is also determined by this practice. While their cost is prohibitive, I have sometimes found the hands-free nature of audiobooks useful in enabling my multitasked reading habits. This further limits reading choices to those with audiobook adaptations: usually bestsellers. Audiobooks can be consumed while doing a variety of other mindless chores. Of course, there is much more I could say on how an audio presentation of a novel changes how it is perceived, despite not technically being reading. But the majority of my reading is done either in print or on a dedicated ebook device, as they are more accessible, and still quite useful for this type of distracted reading.
By contrast, reading for academic purposes demands that I maximize the amount of focus devoted to reading and understanding. I will seek a silent place where I can be either anonymous or solitary. Ideally, the environment is consistent day to day. I will pick from a small selection of familiar places: my desk at home, or a certain floor at the library. This familiarity and isolation allows the greatest amount of concentration to be spent on my reading. But even this more focused and involved style of reading is layered with other activities and couched in its environment. The simplest example of this is the need to write and take notes while reading. While I may try to minimize the environment and focus on my studies, time and space are omnipresent. The smell of coffee, feel of a certain chair, etc., all contribute to this reading practice. My academic reading, therefore, is far from chaotic. I actively and successfully cultivate highly structured times and places for reading.
