I found myself with several unread books due back to the library. I knew I could not realistically read all of them, so how do I decide what to renew and what to return?
(Not sure about you, but I always feel a bit sad returning unread books to the library. I feel like they are calling out to me as I put them into the return slot-Meeeeeellllll, why weren't we good enough? Why didn't you read us? Please tell me I'm not alone in this feeling?!)
I laid my youngest down for his afternoon nap and knew I had a guaranteed hour of baby-free time, so I decided to deploy my 15-minute reading strategy. What is this strategy that I speak of? Let me tell you and you can try it out the next time you are faced with a stack of books and indecisiveness.
Set aside distraction free time. This is crucial. Depending on how many unread books are in your stack (yesterday I had four) you need to set aside time, free of distractions, where you can dedicate 15-minutes to reading snippets of each.
Grab a timer. I use time cubes with my kids, so I have a 15-minute timer handy, but any timer will work-phone, Alexa, old school clock, etc.
Read each book for 15-minutes. When the timer is up, pick up the next book and repeat.
Now the fun part, decide which book to read! How did you feel when you read each book? Did you forget about the timer and want to keep on going? Could you not wait until it buzzed so you could go on to the next book? Go with your gut on this one. Out of the four I read yesterday, two kept my attention and the other two were not doing it for me. After the hour of 15-minute reading blocks, I immediately knew which book I will continue reading and which books I will return to the library.
I know you are wondering, which book did I choose?
Drum roll, please......
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