Or, alternatively, a fine selection of blogs. That will keep your mind alert and your focus steady. Reading is like good food for your brain, without it, it will go lazy, obese and unresponsive. But with the proper food it can become your best friend.

I can’t imagine a life in which I wouldn’t read. Even in my wildest and hippiest and off the grid life representations there’s still a lot of room for books. Not only for the brain challenges it implies but also for their great ability to ignite dreams.

Reading will force your current problems to go away while your focus is on the book. It will also add to your pool of possible solutions if you are seeking one. And it will just make you feel good.

Books are distilled, available and digestible knowledge. Don’t avoid it.

5 Simple Tips That Will Make You Read A Book Per Week

First of all, I have to confess that the title above feels a little awkward to me. I would love to live in a world where we don’t need tips that will lure us into reading more. Reading should be something natural, part of our daily routine and not something that we need motivation and inspiration to partake in. But, once again, this is the world we live in and, since we can’t change it, we can only adapt to it.

So, without further ado, let’s start.

1. Practice Speed Reading

I’ve only been recently exposed to speed reading and I love it. Speed reading is not to be confused with photo reading. In speed reading you literally train your reading muscles and you become faster. With just half an hour of practice per day you can double or triple your current speed reading. So, if you read a book now in two weeks, you’d be able to read it in a week or less.

2. Make A List Of Must Read Books

We all have some books that we really want to read. We just don’t have time for that. Well, start to put them in a list. Make a list of 53 books, for instance, one book per week. And then just stick to that list. This time of the year is really good for that sort of things. And it may be something way more manageable than your usual new year resolutions.

3. Make A List Of  InterestingTopics

This one goes hand in hand with the one above. If you can’t make a list with 53 books, try a shorter list of topics. For instance, you could have on this list the following topics: phantasy, history, technical, motivational and poetry. Then you build the actual list of books based on the percentage each topic you want to take in the bigger picture. For some people this top to bottom approach works better. You won’t know until you try it for yourself.

4. Join A Reading Club

Making yourself accountable is one of the best way to acquire a new habit. And, in this case, joining a group of people who read constantly is the best way to make yourself accountable. The nice thing about these reading clubs is that many of them are actually online communities, you don’t really have to go in person at some gatherings (although I find the latter to be more effective). Whatever your choice, online or in real life, just joining a reading community may give you just that little pinch you need to start.

5. Give Away A Book Per Week

That’s a little bit peculiar, but it may work better than the first four combined. Instead of making a plan to read a book per week, make a plan to give a book per week as a gift. What will happen is that you will be somehow forced to read that book before giving it away. Ok, nobody will force you, but it would be a very nice thing to do.

Giving away a book each week will also have the collateral effect of making other 53 people to read at least one book more than they planned to.