A short, useful read for the Malachain community.
People who read forty books a year are rarely faster readers; they simply read at times others fill with their phone. Twenty minutes on the commute, ten before sleep and a chapter with Sunday coffee add up to a book every ten days. Carry the book everywhere and leave the phone in a bag, and the minutes appear by themselves.
Give yourself permission to abandon a book after fifty pages. Keep two on the go, one demanding and one easy, so there is always a mood that fits. A short note after finishing each one, even a single sentence, makes the reading stick and turns the list into a diary of a year that you will enjoy rereading more than you expect.
If you try any of these ideas, start small and adjust them to your own situation. What works for one person will not suit everyone, and it is fine to keep only the parts that help. Writing down what you changed, and what happened, makes it much easier to see after a few weeks whether the effort was worthwhile.
The most useful step is usually the first one. Pick a single suggestion, try it for a couple of weeks, and then decide whether it is worth keeping. Small, steady improvements last longer than ambitious plans that are hard to maintain once everyday life gets busy again.
It also helps to talk the subject through with friends or colleagues who have tried something similar. Their experience points out the details that guides leave out: how long things really take, which costs were unexpected, and which shortcuts turned out to be a mistake.