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Even you can read 50 books a year with these 4 proven tactics for every type of reader

“You know those hours that most people watch TV? That’s when I’m in my chair reading.”

Photo credit: Canva

Let's get page turning, people.

Everyone says they "want" to read more, yet when free time arrives, suddenly everything else seems more appealing—playing Solitaire on your phone (with ads, ugh), watching a half-interesting TV series, or scrolling social media for hours. Ernest Hemingway once said, "There is no friend as loyal as a book." Despite this truth, Pew Research found that in 2021, roughly a quarter of American adults (23%) hadn't read a single book in over a year.

For some reason, it’s becoming harder to read. Which is why a person on the subreddit, r/books posed the following question:


 reading, audiobooks, books, reddit, schedule “For those that read 50+ books a year, what is your reading schedule?” they implore.Screenshot, Reddit

During vacation, the OP became unexpectedly absorbed in a book. "The experience was different from how I remember it. I lost track of time," they write. This rekindled their love of reading.

“I love the fact that I am reading a little every day. I love that I am losing myself. Previously a part of me know I was reading and it was a struggle,” they share. “But I’ve been reading for 3-4 days and I have only read about 100 pages.”

They turned to the Internet for help, seeking general tips and insights into other people's reading processes. But reading habits aren't one-size-fits-all. They're deeply personal, reflecting our lifestyle, personality, and values in surprisingly profound ways. That's why we've identified four distinct tactics for reading 50+ books per year, each tailored to a specific personality type.

via GIPHY

Why aim for 50+ books? Data analyst Alex Birkett explains it best in a 2015 blog post: "I like the number 50. It's about one book per week. It's a good round number, and it sounds impressive (better than 30, or even 40)."

Plus, if you're reading 200-page books (roughly the length of Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, or The Great Gatsby), by the end of the year, you'll have read approximately 10,000 pages. And as Birkett puts it, "10,000 pages equal a lot of words, and some of those words are going to help you out."

METHOD #1: For people who love using project management software outside of work

For Reagan Rose, reading 50+ books in a year wasn't about "finding the right time"—he needed to find the right software. "At first, I tried using Goodreads to track my reading, but I just couldn't get into it," he explains on his blog, Redeeming Productivity. "So instead, I put the goal in my Notion goal tracker. Each time I finished a book, I added it to a numbered list. Seeing the number go up encouraged me to keep going." He also checked what week of the year it was to quickly gauge his overall progress.

 notion, schedule, reading, productivity, books Tracking his progress helped Rose read more. Credit: Reagan Rose from Redeeming Productivity

METHOD 2: For number-crunchers

College professor John Spencer breaks down the math for us on his blog: “Most people read somewhere between 200-250 words per minute. Let’s go on the safe side and go with 200 words per minute,” he writes. “Most books are around 50,000 words. So, each book takes about 250 minutes to read. So, that’s 12,500 minutes. If we assume you are reading around 357 days a year, then that puts you at about 35 minutes per day. If you read at a faster pace (250 words per minute) you’ll end up closer to 27 or 28 minutes per day.”

From there, he gets even more granular, presenting two models for achieving this level of reading per day:

“One approach would be to carve out 35 minutes per day for reading. It might be your lunch break or it might be an activity you do to unwind each evening,” he writes. “Or you might take two 20-minute chunks and devote them to reading. You could even put those times on your calendar and treat them like meetings. This approach allows you to get into the flow of reading and spend time with more focused concentration on the text.”

 reading, graphic, books, productivity, tracking Spencer's plan for reading 50+ books in a year. Credit: John Spencer


METHOD #3: For people who don’t want to make this complicated

Over the past three years, writer and editor Rebecca Deczynski has read 174 books and counting—while balancing a full-time job and a social life. Her advice isn’t fancy, just three simple guidelines:

  1. Diversify your selection, both in length and genre.
  2. Stick to one book at a time.
  3. Get a strong head start. “I’ve found that getting through as many pages as possible in your first reading session makes it helpful to get into the story and finish reading faster,” she writes. “For example, if a book is 250 pages long, I’ll try to read, ideally, at least 40 pages the first time I sit down with it. This helps me invest in the story so that the next time I pick it up, I feel more propelled toward its finish.”

 woman, reading, books, lifestyle, goals Sometimes, the simplest solution is best. Photo credit: Canva


METHOD #4: For social butterflies

If you’re the type of person who craves reading for the social element it can bring, Janssen Bradshaw from every-dayreading recommends Goodreads, writing: “You might use it a LOT and be very active on the platform and very social, or you might use it for a very specific single purpose like tracking your books you’ve read, following specific authors you love, or managing your To-Be-Read list. There’s no one right way to do it!” The platform lets you catalog books, share reviews, and connect with friends to see what they're reading. Signing up could be the perfect way to launch your 50+ book journey.

via GIPHY

Reading 50+ books in a year may feel insurmountable at first, but sometimes all you need is a little inspiration. With these four different approaches, you can start building your own toolkit for a reading-focused lifestyle.

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Wellness

Woman shares her therapist's surprisingly helpful mental health tip: 'Run the dishwasher twice'

"It blew my mind in a way that I don't think I can properly express."

Achim Thiemermann from Pixabay, Natasha G from Pixabay, Danielle Wunker/Facebook

"Run the dishwasher twice" might sound like strange mental health advice, but a viral post is proving that it's actually quite helpful.

Danielle Wunker, a Licensed Professional Counselor and Supervisor, shared a story on her Facebook page that is resonating with people who struggle with mental health issues. It originally came from an answer from Katie Scott on Quora to the question "Has a therapist ever told you something completely unexpected?"

It reads:

"When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn't get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.

I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn't have much to 'bring' to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.

'What are you struggling with?' he asked.

I gestured around me and said 'I dunno man. Life.'

Not satisfied with my answer, he said 'No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?'


man sitting on chair covering his eyes Photo by christopher lemercier on Unsplash



I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn't want to say it. I wanted to have something more substantial.
Something more profound.

But I didn't.

So I told him, 'Honestly? The dishes. It's stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN'T do them because I'll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can't stand and scrub the dishes.'

I felt like an idiot even saying it.

What kind of grown ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I'm whining to my therapist about dishes?

But he nodded in understanding and then said:

'Run the dishwasher twice.'



File:Dishwasher with dishes.JPG - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

I began to tell him that you're not supposed to, but he stopped me.

'Why the hell aren't you supposed to? If you don't want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist.'

It blew my mind in a way that I don't think I can properly express.

That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.

I felt like I had conquered a dragon.

The next day, I took a shower lying down.

A few days later. I folded my laundry and put them wherever the fuck they fit.

There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.

Now that I'm in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.

But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:

There are no rules.

Run the dishwasher twice."



Anyone who has been in a mental or emotional place where even just the most basic, mundane tasks seem overwhelming understands the wisdom in this lesson. Dishes might seem like such a minor detail of life, but those kinds of minor details can be the straw that breaks the camel's back mentally. If you've never stared at a basket of laundry that would take three minutes to fold and thought, "Nope, can't do it. Not now. Maybe not ever..." then you may not need this lesson, but there are millions of people who appreciate the express permission to let go of the rules in our heads about how things have to be done.

Adjusting expectations and arbitrary ideas about how something works is incredibly freeing and can provide a seemingly temporary fix for a seemingly insurmountable problem. Oddly enough, though, that temporary fix can be the necessary bridge that gets someone from unable-to-cope-with-daily-life-things to functioning on a somewhat normal level.

Mental health is such a tricky thing to manage, and many of the tools for managing it run counter to what we might expect. That's what therapists are for—to help us step outside the box of our own brains, adjust our thoughts and behaviors to create greater possibilities for ourselves, and give us permission to reject the negative voices in our head try to keep us locked in unhelpful or unhealthy patterns.

Even when that unhelpful pattern is as simple as letting the dishes pile up instead of running the dishwasher twice.


This article originally appeared four years ago.

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Wellness

A woman with dementia adored her haircut. Her husband's letter to the stylist is everything.

"Looking back, it was likely dozens of haircuts you gave that day. But one which revitalized a woman's sense of self and her singular beauty."

Image by Michelle Maria from Pixabay, Sara Verkuilen/Instagram

Grab a tissue, folks, because this is one of those stories that has almost too much love and goodness to bear in it.

Sara Verkuilen was working at Hair Cuttery in Round Lake Beach, Illinois last winter when an older couple walked in for a haircut. "I don't think I had ever done their hair before," Verkuilen told Upworthy. "They were walk-ins."

The man and his wife were "just really cute together," she recalled. "He was so sweet with her and obviously very in love."

Little did Verkuilen know how much of an impression her personal service and professional skills would have on both them that day.

The stylist shared a letter she received recently from the husband, signed only as "a grateful customer." The letter reads:

"Dear Sara,

This is a little bit awkward. But I've waited a really long time to pass this on to you.

My wife and I came in for haircuts shortly before Christmas of last year.

My wife was suffering from dementia, and you treated her as if you'd been working with dementia patients all your life. You let us sit next to each other, and when it came time for her cut you turned her chair towards me so I could watch her expression as you cut her hair.

It turned out even better than I thought it would.

Sadly, she died in March. And that haircut was one of the last, best moments of her life. She felt so pretty. She visited the mirror in her bathroom several times during the day and would come out beaming.

To see her so happy was priceless.

Looking back, it was likely dozens of haircuts you gave that day. But one which revitalized a woman's sense of self and her singular beauty. I hope you always realize the power of your profession.

It's so easy to take things like that for granted.

Sincerely,

A grateful customer"

Verkuilen said she wishes she could contact the man.

She doesn't remember the couple's name and the letter didn't give any personal information, but it meant a great deal to her to receive it. She says she'd been feeling kind of stuck and bored in her career, which she's been in about eight years, and this letter gave her the boost she needed.

"Receiving this letter was a huge reminder why I do what I do," she said. "It's an amazing feeling seeing someone look in the mirror after a transformation and smiling. Seeing how beautiful they feel, how confidence levels change. But it's an extremely difficult career. I get burnt out easily. I hope this letter can restore faith in other stylists that are maybe doubting if this career is right for them. We touch more than hair and I hope all the stylists out there realize how important they are and how what we do can have such an impact on our clients."

She also hopes seeing the letter helps clients understand that stylists don't "just cut hair."

What a beautiful reminder to appreciate people who work in service jobs, the little things that make us happy, the "singular beauty" of our loved ones, and the time we have with them.


This article originally appeared five years ago.

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Security cameras showed a kid 'tearing it up' in his driveway each night. So he took adorable action.

He's like the ultimate Anti-Get-Off-My-Lawn-Guy.

Most of us had one of those neighbors growing up—the one who gave us the stink eye if we so much as looked at their perfectly mowed lawn and shooed us away if even our shadows crept onto their flower beds. There's a reason "Get off my lawn!" was a meme before memes were even a thing.

Then there are neighbors who rock. The ones who smile and wave through the window and share their fresh-baked cookies with the neighborhood kids. The folks who genuinely enjoy the vibrant energy that children bring to the block and embrace the idea of "it takes a village."

When one of the guys behind Canyon Chasers, a motorcycle enthusiast website, shared a video of how he handled a kid who kept playing in his driveway when he wasn't home, it wasn't clear at first which kind of neighbor he was going to be. But then he explains how his security footage showed a preschooler riding his bike around his flat concrete driveway every evening, and how he decided to do something about it.

And what ensued was the best Anti-Get-Off-My-Lawn move that ended up pleasing more neighbors than he anticipated.

How I Deal With Kids Playing in My Driveway | The Saga of My Driveway Racetrackwww.youtube.com

How fun would that have been when you were a kid? And how great that he made a new one each time it rained? And how delightful is it that people of all ages showed up to enjoy it?

Imagine a world where all neighbors were this thoughtful and generous with their time and property. More of this, please.


This article originally appeared five years ago.

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