In our previous post. we discussed Five simple ways to cultivate the reading habit (check out previous post). In this post, we will further discuss how to finish long and difficult books. Quite a number of time, most of us have picked up books but for some reasons could not finish it. It is not enough to discipline oneself to read, one has to go further to read the book through, that way you can get the most out of it. This also enables you to give unbiased views about the book you have read. Below are few simple tips to enable achieve this.
1. DETERMINATION: Can anything ever get done without determination? You have to make up your mind to finish the book by giving all that it takes. This also help you register it in your subconscious that a particular book will be finished.
2. DISCIPLINE: We all know that things that are not habitual to us yet, just like habits in the previous post require discipline. If seeing the last page of a book is yet to become habitual you’ve got to exercise some discipline. It enables you stick to the time you have set aside for reading.
3. BREAK IT DOWN INTO PAGES OR CHAPTERS: This one easy way of ensuring that you finish a book within a time lag. Choose the number of pages or chapters you can finish in an hour, a day or week. With the help of a bookmark, you can easily identify where you stopped and you can start from there the next time you pick up the book.
4. HAVE A TIME LAG: This is having a time frame or deadline within which you intend to finish the book you have picked up for reading. This also helps you to finish segmented chapters and pages allocated to a particular time.
5. TAKE TIME TO REFRESH: For someone like me, once I begin to read a sentence about three times, I know I’m getting bored and I should take a time out. You can listen to songs, go on a walk, meditate, enjoy nature, check out new words you came across in the course of reading, look up the author of the book’s biography.
