How to Find Time to Read: 12 Practical Strategies for Busy People

Quick Answer: Most "busy" people have an average of 3+ hours of phone time and 4+ hours of TV time per day — the time exists, the allocation is the problem. The strategies that actually add reading minutes back: (1) keep a book in every common waiting spot (kitchen, bathroom, car, bag), (2) replace 20 minutes of social-media doomscroll with the Kindle app, (3) audiobooks during commute, walks, and chores, (4) protect a non-negotiable 15-minute window before bed instead of TV, and (5) read on weekend mornings before phones turn on. Reading 30 minutes a day equals about 25 books a year — the gap is rarely time, it is friction. Use a habit system to make the choice automatic.

The most common reason people give for not reading more is lack of time. But consider this: the average American spends over three hours per day on their phone and over four hours watching television. Time exists. The challenge is not finding time but choosing to allocate it differently.

This is not a guilt trip. Modern life is genuinely demanding, and after a long day of work, family obligations, and responsibilities, the last thing you may want is another activity that requires effort. The strategies below are designed to work with your existing life rather than demanding you restructure everything.

Strategy 1: Read First Thing in the Morning

Your morning, before email, news, and social media have claimed your attention, is often the highest quality reading time available. Even fifteen minutes of reading before checking your phone creates a meaningful dent in any book.

The key is making the book more accessible than your phone. Place your book on top of your phone at night. When you reach for the phone in the morning, you grab the book first. This physical barrier is surprisingly effective at redirecting the first fifteen minutes of your day.

If you already have a morning routine, insert reading into an existing gap rather than adding time. Read while your coffee brews. Read during breakfast. Read during the first few minutes after waking up while your brain transitions from sleep to alertness.

Strategy 2: Replace One Scroll Session Per Day

Track your phone usage for a week using your device's built-in screen time tracker. Most people are shocked by the results. You do not need to eliminate phone usage entirely. Just replace one scrolling session per day with reading.

If you spend twenty minutes scrolling Instagram before bed, that is twenty minutes of reading. Over a year, twenty minutes per day adds up to approximately twelve to fifteen books, depending on reading speed and book length.

Keep a book or reading app on your phone's home screen where a social media app used to be. When you reflexively pick up your phone, the book is what you see first.

Strategy 3: Carry a Book Everywhere

Unexpected pockets of time appear throughout every day. Waiting rooms, checkout lines, public transit, the ten minutes before a meeting starts, the few minutes between finishing lunch and going back to work. These fragments feel too short for anything productive, but they are perfect for reading.

If you always have a book available, whether physical or on your phone, you can convert these dead moments into reading time. Over a week, these fragments can easily add up to an hour or more.

Strategy 4: Use Audiobooks for Commutes and Chores

Your commute, exercise, cooking, cleaning, and errands already consume significant time. Audiobooks transform these activities from lost time into reading time without requiring any schedule changes.

The average American commute is about fifty-two minutes per day. At audiobook speeds, that is roughly a book per week just from commute time. Add exercise, household chores, and errands, and you could easily consume two to three audiobooks per week.

Many libraries offer free audiobooks through apps like Libby, so cost does not need to be a barrier.

Strategy 5: Create a Reading Ritual Before Bed

Reading before bed serves double duty: it provides reading time and improves sleep quality. Research has consistently shown that reading a physical book before bed reduces stress and helps you fall asleep faster, while screen time before bed disrupts sleep through blue light exposure and mental stimulation.

Start with just ten minutes. Set an alarm thirty minutes before your target bedtime. When it goes off, put away all screens and pick up a book. The consistency matters more than the duration. Over time, your brain will associate the book with winding down, making both reading and sleeping easier.

Strategy 6: Use the Pomodoro Technique for Reading

If you struggle to sustain attention during reading sessions, try the Pomodoro technique: read for twenty-five minutes, take a five-minute break, then read for another twenty-five minutes. The timer creates urgency that helps maintain focus, and the break prevents burnout.

Many readers find they can sustain two or three Pomodoros of reading when they could not sustain forty-five minutes of continuous reading. The breaks give your brain time to process what you read, which actually improves comprehension and retention.

Strategy 7: Schedule Reading Like a Meeting

If something is not on your calendar, it probably will not happen. Schedule specific reading times and treat them with the same respect you would give a work meeting or doctor's appointment.

Start with two or three thirty-minute reading blocks per week. Put them on your calendar. When other obligations try to encroach, protect these blocks. Over time, reading becomes a non-negotiable part of your schedule rather than something that gets squeezed out by everything else.

Strategy 8: Read During Meals

If you eat alone for any meals, that is built-in reading time. A lunch break is typically thirty to sixty minutes, and eating usually takes fifteen to twenty minutes. The remaining time is often spent scrolling a phone. Redirecting that time to reading is effortless.

If you eat with family, this strategy obviously does not apply to shared meals. But breakfast, work lunches, or late-night snacks are often solitary activities that pair naturally with reading.

Strategy 9: Quit Books That Are Not Working

One of the biggest time wastes in reading is forcing yourself through a book you are not enjoying. Life is too short to read bad books, and every hour spent slogging through a book you dislike is an hour not spent reading something you would love.

Give a book fifty to one hundred pages. If it has not grabbed you by then, set it aside without guilt. Some readers use the rule of one hundred minus your age: if you are thirty, give a book seventy pages. The older you get, the less patience you need to have with books that do not earn your attention.

Strategy 10: Join a Book Club or Reading Challenge

External accountability dramatically increases follow-through. When other people are expecting you to have read something, you find the time. Book clubs also add social motivation and the satisfaction of discussing what you have read. After finishing each book together, writing a brief review sharpens your thinking and gives the group something concrete to react to.

If in-person book clubs do not fit your schedule, online reading communities serve the same purpose. Goodreads challenges, Reddit book clubs, or even a simple agreement with a friend to read the same book create enough social pressure to prioritize reading.

Strategy 11: Reduce Decision Fatigue

Sometimes the obstacle is not time but deciding what to read. You finish a book and then spend days browsing recommendations, reading reviews, and debating what to start next. During that decision period, you are not reading.

Maintain a reading list of ten to twenty books you want to read. When you finish a book, immediately start the next one on your list. No deliberation, no browsing. The queue system ensures you always have a clear next step.

Strategy 12: Track Your Reading

What gets measured gets managed. Track how many pages or minutes you read each day. The act of tracking creates a small accountability loop that motivates consistency.

Use a simple method: a tally in a notebook, an app, or a reading log. You do not need anything complex. The goal is making your reading habit visible so that streaks become motivating and gaps become noticeable.

Tools like Chapterly can help you not only track what you read but also retain the key ideas through spaced repetition. This means the time you invest in reading produces lasting knowledge rather than quickly fading impressions.

The Math of Small Commitments

Here is a calculation that changes how most people think about reading time.

The average person reads about 250 words per minute. The average non-fiction book contains about 60,000 words. That means a typical book takes roughly four hours to read.

If you read for just twenty minutes per day, that is about 140 minutes per week, or roughly 120 hours per year. At four hours per book, that is thirty books per year, just from twenty minutes a day.

Twenty minutes is less time than most people spend choosing what to watch on Netflix. The issue was never time. It was priority.

Start Today, Not Tomorrow

The best strategy is the one you will actually use. Do not try to implement all twelve strategies at once. Pick the one that feels most natural given your current routine and start with that. You can add others later.

The most important thing is to start reading today, not tomorrow. Open a book right now, even if only for five minutes. That five minutes is more than zero, and zero is what happens when you keep waiting for the perfect time to read.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many minutes a day should I read to finish a book a week?

Most nonfiction books are 60,000–80,000 words, and the average reader covers 250 words per minute. That works out to roughly 35–45 minutes of reading per day to finish one book per week. For most people, 20 minutes a day is a more sustainable starting point — that pace produces about 25 books per year, which is more than the average American reads in a decade.

Is listening to audiobooks the same as reading?

Comprehension is roughly equal for narrative books, but most studies show a small disadvantage for audiobooks on dense, technical, or argument-heavy material because you cannot pause and reread easily. Audiobooks are excellent for filling otherwise-dead time (commute, chores, walks). For retention, follow up with active recall practice — voice memos work well.

How do I find time to read with young kids at home?

Stack reading into existing transitions: 10 minutes during breakfast, 10 minutes during a child's screen time, 15 minutes before bed, audiobooks during stroller walks or grocery runs. The parent reading hour is often 5–9 AM before the household wakes. Lower the bar to "open the book for two pages" — momentum does the rest.

Should I read first thing in the morning or before bed?

Both work. Morning reading benefits from high cognitive freshness and is best for dense or technical material. Evening reading benefits from quiet, fewer interruptions, and a wind-down effect that improves sleep (if you avoid backlit screens). The best time is the one you can protect from interruption every day.

How do I stop falling asleep while reading at night?

If the book itself is interesting, falling asleep is usually a signal of physical fatigue rather than boredom — your body wants sleep more than reading. Read upright in a chair rather than in bed, keep the room cool and well-lit, and read for 15–20 minutes max if you want to retain anything. For pre-sleep wind-down without retention goals, falling asleep is fine.