How to Create More Reading Time with this Simple Tool

Do you ever find yourself saying “I wish I had more time to read” ? Check out today’s episode to find out how to make more time to read!

In today's episode, I walk you through actionable steps for auditing your time, and help you unlock hidden time in your day for more reading!

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Full Show Notes (Transcript)…

Hi there, I'm Stephanie Leopold and I am excited to welcome you to the Readerly Collective Podcast, where bookworms unite and geeking out is highly encouraged. Join me as we explore the world of books in the reading life, celebrating all types of readers and all types of genres. Grab your favorite beverage, cozy up in your reading nook, and let's dive in.

Hey there, fellow readers. You are here because you love books! Well, I have a special gift for you. I have a free audio that guides you through the five questions for your reading life to help you get the most out of your reading life. Head on over to www.thereaderlycollective.com/5questions. to grab your free audio.

Hey there readers, welcome to another episode! I hope you are reading some great books. This month I wanted to dive into time - making more time to read. I don't know about you, but I have never met anybody that has ever said “I'm good with my reading life” or “I don't want to read any more than I already do.” I always hear, whether you are a voracious reader or more of a casual reader, if you enjoy reading, everybody I have ever talked to says, “I wish I had more time to read.” So, if this is you, Stay with me because we're gonna dive into how to make more time to read.

So I want you to think about this - you want to read more and maybe you are a “voracious” reader and you're always reading, you've always got a book going, but you just want to be able to read more books. There's so many books out there, that there's this FOMO of like, “I've gotta read these books so I can get to these other books.” There are always new books being released, and so it's hard to keep up. So, maybe you want to read because there are a bajillion books out there. Maybe you are more of a casual reader, and you only read a couple books a year or so, but you find yourself thinking, I wish I read more, or there are some books I want to get to, but I just kind of put it on the back burner or I'll get to it when I get to it and then that never really happens. As we go through today and the rest of the month, I'm going help you start identifying ways that you can find more time in your day to read because that's what we all want.

So today I am going to walk you through a time audit. Now, as I was coming up with this podcast, I was like talking to myself and I was like, Stephanie, this is not exciting! This seems like a little bit of a chore, and should I do a podcast about this? And I I thought to myself, I am here to help you get more out of your reading life, and I think this is a really important piece. And so yes, we're going to talk about a time audit, but through this, you're going to start to be more aware of how you're spending your time and where you can find those little pockets of time to read.

So let's get into it and stick with me, because I know it's not the most exciting, but it's going to help you in your reading life. So what exactly is a time audit? What do I mean by that? It is really just an examination or an observation of how you're spending your time. We're just looking at facts. There are a few ways to do this. You can google time audit and there will be templates and apps. There's a lot of different ways you could do this and the biggest thing I want to say is just do what works for you! If that is just getting a piece of paper and a pen and writing down the tasks you did for the day or if you want to get a calendar template and look at every 15 minute increment… Again, whatever works for you, that you'll be able to utilize and then go back and analyze, which we'll talk about. Just get started, and make it easy to track how you’re spending your time. So that's basically what a time audit is and how you can just do a time audit that works for you.

Once you figure out how you want to track your time, the first step is to actually track your time! Now, I know we're not going to be exact on this, but you can break this down to you’re big chunks of time such as work hours, the hours that you sleep. If you've got volunteer time or you have classes or activities you're in, you can go ahead and block those off because we know mostly how that time is spent. The next thing to look at, once those big chunks are blocked off is any smaller tasks or activities around those bigger time blocks. For instance, if you work outside of the home thinking about the time it takes you to commute, and what time is allotted for your morning routine, getting ready for work. And then start looking and filling in other times of the day. Take a look at your evening routine, are there times when you are sitting watching tv or doom scrolling on your phone? What’s your nighttime routine getting ready for bed? It's important to track those things, especially the phone, (I'm guilty of that!). So tracking your time in whatever way that works for you. If it's easier to do it in hour increments or 30 minutes, or you really want to dive deep and look at every 15 minutes - do what is easiest for you!

And then step number two - we're going to look at the data. We're going to look at our time audit and analyze it. For example let’s say you’ve got a 20 minute commute to work. Guess what? Maybe you could listen to an audiobook while you’re driving or I spent so much time scrolling on my phone when I could could have been reading, and I don't I don't want to spend my time that way. Let's look at that and not make any judgments. It just is what it is, and this is how we're spending our time. So we're going to analyze it and look at how we are currently spending our time.

Step number three in a time audit, that I think is really important, is setting a realistic goal for how much time I want to be reading and where I can make that time to be reading. An example is when I was in graduate school, I was working, going to school, and doing an internship. Guess what? I didn't get a lot of reading outside of school done, and I also knew that that wasn't realistic. That just wasn't going to happen. But now I'm not in school, I don't have an internship anymore, and so I've got time. I've actually got time that I have found within my time audit that I want to be using for reading rather than what I’ve been using that time for.

So we have tracked our time. We have looked at the data. We are setting a realistic goal for where we can find time to read. Where we can put our focus on reading rather than this particular thing we're doing currently.

And then the last step we're going to make a plan and implement it! We're gonna go deeper on the plan next week , but I just wanted to go ahead and put this out there.

In general, it will be beneficial if you can track your time for about a week to get a really good idea, especially during the weekdays. I know weekends can be a little different and a little trickier. And I can't stress this enough - you do what works for you. This is for you and if you want to track longer, or maybe you track your weekdays for the week and then you track your weekends for a couple of weeks. Whatever works for you that will get you the data that you need to start opening up or allowing for little pockets of time to read.

And then as I said, we are going to dive deeper into making a plan, implementing a plan. Sometimes that is the hardest part - is actually doing it, right? I say this all the time, “I spend too much time on my phone” and I think a lot of us do. I've heard a lot of people say that, but actually putting down the phone can sometimes just be difficult or we don't think about it. So I'm going to help you with that next week. I hope that was helpful. If you have any questions about a time audit or anything else, reach out and let me know. I'd love to hear from you.

Before I hop off, I wanted to let you know, if you are listening to this, live-ish, in the month of August, I want to invite you to a dedicated reading hour that I'm going to be hosting over Zoom. And that is going to be Saturday, August 24th at 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern, 12 noon for all my Central Standard Time people. You can go sign up for that and learn more about that at www.thereaderlycollecitve.com/august2024. I hope to see you there! What a better way to get more time, make more time for reading than to join us for a dedicated hour of it! And also, if you have a cooler name, suggestion, reach out and let me know. And until next week, friends, take care

Well that closes another chapter on this week's episode of the Readerly Collective podcast. Remember the conversation doesn't have to end here. Connect with me on Instagram at the Readerly Collective or over in our Facebook group. All you have to do is search the Readerly Collective.

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