Quite often I am asked: “When can I find time to read?”. This is a very good question, and there are several disciplines that address it from several perspectives.
First of all, if you do not have time to procrastinate you will probably have no time to read. It is important to understand, that just like you need to sleep several hours a day you should probably procrastinate several hours a day. This is just the way regular humans are built and if you do not set up time for procrastination you will eventually get burned out. Maybe there are some very few people that can work much more than the others. Probably being such a person is as rare as being able to complete Ironman triathlone event. If you are such a person, you simply need to set up one-hour session for reading 3 times a week.
Otherwise, please continue reading this post.
Procrastination may be both productive and unproductive. We want productive procrastination. In this sense, procrastination is the time when we visualize the events of the day to come and analyze the events of the day passed, read news, daydream (about vacation, success, new things to learn, food, sports, people), and try to organize our thoughts. Some people jog or meditate, some organize their calendars, some pray, some watch TV. Each of us has rituals for productive procrastination, usually more than one ritual. It is a good idea to allocate significant time [several hours] for productive procrastination at least 3 times a week, and this time should also be used for reading. Reading is the fueled by day-dreaming: what we want to learn, what happened in the universe and captures our imagination, what other people think about issues that are important for us, how our favorite authors address their subjects. Reading is also important part of productive daydreaming, or we will eventually start running the same mental movies over and over again. There does not have to be a special environment for reading. We can read at home, at work, while commuting (audiobooks also count). We can read pretty much every time we procrastinate. Reading is respected by our peers and passers-by, so reading is much better than dozing off. If you can afford procrastinating there is really no reason not to read, unless you use the opportunity to meditate or savor the moment. If you do practice mindfulness, you will probably already have enough time set up for mindful activities and squeezing in reading should be easy.
Many people are so obsessed about productivity that they sabotage their own success. Take for example this article. If you do not take breaks and are locked on some problem, the creative solution to that problem may never come to you. If you stay within your comfort zone where you feel most productive, you will not be able to learn new things sufficiently well. If you try to emulate your role models, you may eventually feel miserable: what worked for others will not necessarily work for you and you need to find your own path. If you ignore side projects, you reduce your chance of getting lucky and increase risk of failure.
You may need to claim back your lost time. How important for you is each and every activity you are doing? Maybe you can prioritize you productive procrastination above other activities. Can you remove time suckers? Do not try to remove Pomodoro break, look at massive time loss. Less TV, less gaming and social media, fewer/shorter pointless meetings and conversations are welcome. Reallocate all interruptions into Pomodoro breaks, and do not give up on emails and friends. Do you come from work and cannot go to sleep? Procrastinate! Do you come to work and cannot focus? Procrastinate! Are you “heavy” after siesta? Procrastinate yet again! Try to off-load to others anything that does not require your immediate attention, and try to solve now anything that may prevent you from procrastination in the future.
Do focus on how to make you reading productive. Before you can read, you need to regain your focus and your attention. You may refill your energy while reading. To get your focus and attention back, you need to close all notifications, and start visualizing yourself reading the stuff you like, and how much you would enjoy it. Read something cool or funny for 10 min. Then you can continue reading using the same media much more complex stuff. You will already be “in the flow”. And if you need to read for school or work, read that after a short Pomodoro break – make sure to minimize interruptions while you work.
Every productivity expert will tell you to take a recess from time to time. Do follow their advice, and add reading to what you do while you take this recess. Procrastination or recess is a very important part of our daily routine. Do not sabotage our success. Fill the recess with mindfulness, daydreaming and reading.
