A Reading challenge for 2023 – E|F Shorts
Ever since 2016 I have tried every year to undertake some form of reading challenge. And I have failed. In 2016, I made it consistenly through January & February and into March and then I fell off the reading wagon.
Since then, I have mostly just found a challenge that I like and downloaded the list and then forgotten about it.
This year, I am gearing myself up to actually complete the challenge. And, by posting publicly about it, I am hoping to achieve better consistency. So please do email or drop me a tweet to see how I am doing. Contact details are in the footer at the bottom of the page. Being honest, I am off to a bad start.
So what am I doing?
The reading challenge comes from Tim Challies and can found here. The basic idea is he doesn’t tell you what books to read but has a list of prompts to get you to select books enabling you to widen your reading. Those prompts can be as broad as ‘A novel’ to much more specific ones like ‘a book by a living author who is over 70’. The challenge has a number of different options with the first option level being 13 books or 1 every 4 weeks and then each level adds to the list going from 13 books, through 26 and 52 all the way up to 104 books. I am aiming at 26 books this year.
How to do it?
Here are my thoughts. Firstly, the aim is to broaden your reading and read more so picking books that are outside your normal reading areas is a must, but also don’t be afraid to throw in some of your favourites. Second, if every book you choose is an 800 page weighty tome, you are making things harder for yourself. Don’t avoid these entirely but in 2016 my ‘book for children’ was The Gruffalo. I read that in 5 minutes. So be flexible with what counts in your aim to read more. Third, I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t keep up with the pace. It’s supposed to be helpful servant not a cruel tyrant. Fourthly, consistency is a better way to keep pace. Therefore, if you can, the best approach is to set aside a chunk of time every single day, at the same time of day as far as you can, and that can be your reading slot. And lastly, my aims here are a two fold. To read more and spend less time idly scrolling on my phone doing nothing. So all that time I am on my phone wasting my time on clickbait article, what if instead I was on my kindle app reading?
I’m going to do this and I’d love it if you could join me and let me know how you are going with it.
