My path back to regular book-reading in 2024, inconveniently, did not start on January 1, but instead at the end of February, so I will update or make a new post then. However, appreciating the fresh start that a new year offers even if it’s somewhat artificial, here goes.

Getting back to regular book-reading this year is an accomplishment that I’m extremely pleased about, given how long and how many times I had unsuccessfully tried to do this before. 

Pre-2024 reading numbers

What were my book-reading habits and patterns before I re-established this habit? I’ve tried to piece these together based on patchy and incomplete tracking in a few different places, such as GoodReads and my own lists in Word and Excel. This tracking is far from complete in many cases, especially the further back I go, but it’s the best information I have to go on and I’m unlikely to improve upon it.

In 2023, I read only nine books. I also listened to at least two audiobooks, but since some of my reading goals involve improving my attention span and are specific to the cognitive and visual processes of reading, I don’t count those in my “reading” total. My best recent reading year, using the criteria of number of books read (and more on that elsewhere) was 2019 and it’s been pretty poor since then and before then, until this year. Two-thousand eleven was another good reading year with 23 books, in sharp contrast to 2010, when I only read (or tracked) four books. That was a difficult year for me in the personal realm and also the year I got a smartphone, so it’s where I tend to date the origin of my book-reading struggles, but it was interesting for me to learn in the course of this review that the next year was so much better, as well as how poor the years directly preceding 2010 were. But again, the extent to which the number of tracked books is accurate in those years is very questionable. It’s highly unlikely that I read no books at all in 2000 or 2004, for example. I would have spent/wasted a lot of time on the internet in those years, reading articles and news, googling, browsing, and opening tens of thousands of tabs, but it was pre-social media and pre-binge-watching. (check/link chronology)

Improvement in 2024

At the end of February 2024, I started reading about, and applying, the Tiny Habits method of habit formation to my book-reading – this is what finally turned around and helped me rebuild my book-reading habit in what I believe is a sustainable way. Before that, I had completed only one book in 2024. In total, I completed 27 books in 2024, which is my best year ever, based on my (incomplete) tracking data. I know this is not a huge number of books for those who already have a well-established habit, but for me, it is excellent, especially given that my tiny reading habit is to read only one paragraph per day and when I first started, that’s all I did on many days (explain/link elsewhere about the method).

And as I’ve said elsewhere (link), for anyone who is struggling to read books and wants to rebuild their habit, I don’t recommend making the number of books you complete your main measuring stick for success, but instead focusing on the regularity and consistency of your book-reading (tiny) habit. I found it rewarding to record when I had completed my tiny reading habit each day (I like Way of Life (affiliate)) and even more so to be able to look back on that now. On average, there were about three days each month when I didn’t carry out my tiny reading habit – or an average of  27 days per month when I did. In my book, that means I’ve been very successful at making book-reading a regular and routine part of my everyday life again – and I love that. At this point, I read at least a paragraph (and most times a few to several pages or more) in the morning before I get out of bed. This is my original tiny habit. And most days, though less consistently, I also read more than that in the evening, though I have not tiny-habitized this…and of course, if I’m very into whatever book I happen to be reading, I find time in other parts of the day to read as well. 

I also feel, thanks both to my tiny habit and the various efforts I’ve put into creating related habits and behaviour “infrastructure” to support my book-reading, that I’m extremely well-positioned (barring catastrophe) to build on 2024’s success in a way that will allow me to read and complete substantially more in 2025 and am inspired (i.e., motivated) to do so. 

But no, I will not be increasing my Tiny Habit to a page or a chapter or anything like that – that would not be consistent with the Tiny Habits method. If you’re curious about that, I discuss it more here.