How to Read More: Start With 10 Pages a Day

Why “read more” never starts

“Read more” sounds like a plan. But it never says how much, or when, so every evening you have to decide all over again.

So a number takes the deciding away. “Read 10 pages after dinner” leaves one question: which chair.

That’s all small goals are: a big wish cut down to today’s size, with a number you can count.

Give the goal a number and a time.

How many pages a day? Do the math

Ten pages looks tiny on its own. It looks different once you multiply it by a year.

Where do the numbers come from? 300 pages at 10 a day is 30 days, and 365 days divided by 30 is just over 12 books (we rounded down).

The 10-page row is where we’d start: big enough to finish real books, small enough for a weeknight.

And even the 2-page row finishes two books a year, which beats four bookmarks parked on page 31.

Pick the row you could manage on a tired night.

How to read more books with 10 pages a day

The plan has five parts, and none of them takes longer than a minute to set up.

1. 1

   Pick one book.

   Choose the one you’d open for fun. Put the other three back on the shelf for now.

2. 2

   Put it where your evening goes.

   On the pillow, next to the charger, on the chair where you eat. Somewhere you already stop.

3. 3

   Read 10 pages, then stop.

   Even if it’s going well. Tomorrow you’ll want to come back.

4. 4

   Keep a 2-page busy day.

   On a full day, read 2 pages and close the book. It still moves the bookmark.

5. 5

   Write the page number.

   Pencil it on the bookmark before you close the book. That’s your whole record.

Step 4 is the 2 minute rule in book form: a version so small that a full day can’t squeeze it out.

Christian Jarrett’s guide for Psyche (opens in a new tab) makes two points that fit here: keep books close at hand, and don’t be afraid to quit a book you don’t enjoy.

So if you’re fifty pages in and still dreading it, swap it. Ten pages of a book you like will get read. Ten pages of homework mostly won’t.

Keeping count without a reading app

You don’t need an app to keep count. The bookmark is already a log.

Each night, the date and the page go on it in pencil, written small enough that a whole week of reading fits on one strip of card with room left for a doodle.

It’s a tiny record.

And on a slow week, those little marks show you something a memory won’t: the bookmark moved.

A pencil mark is a note about something you did. That’s the idea behind Yumemira, the small-steps journal for iPhone.

Reading is one of the 26 ready goals, and it starts at 10 pages a day.

On the goal’s screen, a busy-day link says Read 2 pages, and quick adds like +5 pages cover the nights you keep going.

After you tap Mark done, Mira cheers. Then a tap on Say how it went leaves room for one line about what you read.

It’s easy to write a line about a chapter you closed two minutes ago. “The letter was from her brother. Did not see that coming.”

Pencil or phone, the record does the same job. It turns “I should read more” into a page number you can check.

What about a busy week?

Some weeks take every evening. Work runs late, dinner happens standing up at the counter, the laundry on the chair starts to look permanent, and the book stays exactly where you left it on Monday.

But even those nights have room for 2 pages. They fit between getting into bed and switching off the lamp, and the bookmark still moves forward.

On a full day, read 2 pages and stop.

That’s how small habits get through bad weeks: there’s always a version small enough to do half asleep.

How to start a habit of reading tonight

Tonight’s book is the one from the pile you’d open for fun, and it’s worth picking now, while you’re still reading this.

It goes on your pillow, so you meet it at bedtime before you meet the phone.

If you’d like reading to sit beside one or two other daily goals, keep each one this small.

The other three books can wait. Tonight, one bookmark gets past page 31.