Thinking about... reading progress

 Nice Sunday!

I am preparing my annual article about the books I read this year. And in addition to that I have decided to share my new discovery with you. New year often means new ways and resolutions. Mine is to read more books which made me think about reading via audiobooks.

Last year was a hard one for me in many ways, my goal was 20 books and I haven't read that many. I managed only 12 books and that is very few even for me. The main reason was my work that really consumed a lot of my time (more than it should). Such is the risk of working as the head of the work team. As you might have noticed earlier in my articles, I am a store manager and my saleswomen had a bad year (some injuries, some covid and other illnesses) so I had to change the schedule constantly, often changing my own shifts, working overtime and thinking about how we would best go through it all.

That also meant I was often to tired to read and I even didn't have the mood for it with all the stress in my mind.

So at Chrismas I have decided to try audiobooks. I didn't have the best experience with them, I tried some during my time at university but I found out I can't remember anything. So I came up with different approach. I play an audiobook and read a physical book as well at the sime time. After a few days I got quite used to it and I tried to listen only to the audio. But again, that is not my strong side. 

I learned, though, that I could get myself focused on the audiobook if I follow some simple rules

1. I don't do things that attract to much attention while listening (like scrolling instagram and writing text messages)
2. If I can, I read the physical book too as I said- surprisingly, I find that quite useful because sometimes at night, when I get home tired from work, I don't have the energy to fully concentrate on reading so seeing it white also listening helps a lot
3. And if I can't take a book (for example I like listening to audiobooks while doing chores and cleaning), I play the book to headphones, so all I can hear is the narration and nothing distracts me. If I can't here anything aside from the storytelling, I find it easier to focus now

I have never thought I would ever actually come to like and enjoy audibooks. That began to change when I started to see the results. Last year, it would sometimes take me a month to read a book (if the book was 500+ pages). Now I see the amount of pages I am able to "read" in the time I have to do other things. Doing weekly home cleaning takes me about 3-4 hours every weekend and now it means about 150 pages read in that time, which is amazing for me! And that also means that in one month I could read 4 books, which I haven't been able to read in years!

I always search a lot of websites for the best version, because sometimes the narration really makes a big difference whether I like it or not. Most of the webpages are for a monthly fee but you can find a lot of free websites with a good quality and good narrator, you just have to search.

I wrote this article as an advice for everyone who struggle with reading and haven't yet try listening to audiobooks. It helped me a good deal and these are the effective ways for me. In fact, I have to admit that I got this idea to give it a chance from bookstagrammers. Daily I see so many post and reels about how listening to audiobooks helped them read quicker. They convinced me in the end and here I am, enjoying audiobooks!

If you have some other tips that help you read more books and you would like to share them, drop them in the comments below. I would feel better if I knew I am not the only one struggling with reading.

So what about you? Which form of reading do you prefer- audiobooks, ebooks or physical books? Any tips here? 😉

Have a nice evening!💖