We live in an age where attention is the new poverty. A world of endless tabs, endless notifications, endless opinions, endless noise. Reading, deep, meaningful, nourishing reading, has become a luxury skill. Not because books are scarce, but because attention is.

Yet reading remains one of the few habits that can expand your mind, deepen your thinking, sharpen your identity, and give you an inner life strong enough to resist the chaos around you.

But most advice on reading is predictable and painfully unhelpful: 

• set goals
• schedule time
• buy books
• join a book club 

Lovely. But insufficient in a world engineered to splinter your focus. 

To read in today’s society, you need strategies that are rebelliously different. 

And here are some of those strategies to help you read more, and read better, when the world is exhausting your mind.

1. Stop Reading For Quantity; Read For Identity

People try to read more by chasing numbers: 20 books a year, 50 books, 100 books. It backfires, because numbers create anxiety, not depth.

Try this instead:

• Read as a way to become someone you’re proud of.
• Identity fuels discipline in a way goals never can.

Say to yourself:

“I am the kind of person who reads.”

2. Have Two Books: One For Your Brain And One For Your Mood

ADHD tendencies make it hard to stick with one book consistently. So work with your psychology, not against it.

Choose:

• A deep book for when your mind is calm, and
• An easy book for when your brain is noisy.

Switching strategically keeps you reading, even on days when mental fog tries to sabotage you.

3. Read Before Your Phone Wakes Up

Your phone wakes up earlier than you do, and the moment you touch it, your attention belongs to the world.

Try this

• Read something before your first digital interaction of the day.
• Even 2–5 minutes rewires your brain. Consistency beats duration.

Begin your morning with your mind, not the internet. 

“But, I have to get ready for work.”

“My work is my phone.”

“The internet is my work.”

All valid concerns but if you’re serious about rewiring your reading journey, you would spare your mind just five minutes before bouncing into the chaotic digital world.

4. Use The “Two-page Commitment”

The hardest part of reading is starting. Instead of trying to read for 30 minutes, commit to just two pages. Anyone can read two pages and 90% of the time, two pages become 20. This bypasses resistance and gets your brain into motion.

5. Carry A Book As If It Were Part Of Your Outfit

Don’t leave your reading to “when you have time.” Time rarely appears but pockets of time do. Waiting rooms. Queues. Train rides. Bus trips. Lunch break. These are all pockets of time between your daily tasks. If your book is physically with you, these pockets can turn into chapters. 

6. Ruin The Perfectionism That Stops You Reading

Many people don’t read because they think reading must be solemn, organised, or aesthetic. You don’t need the perfect chair, perfect tea, perfect bookmark, perfect silence.

• Read in chaos.
• Read in noise.
• Read in fragments.

Books are not sacred because of the atmosphere but because of the transformation they offer.

7. Let Your Curiosity, Not Guilt, Choose Your Next Book

Don’t read what you think you “should.” Read what pulls your attention with the slightest gravity. Curiosity is nature’s motivator; obligation, its enemy. Follow your curiosity, and reading becomes easier than scrolling.

8. Don’t Finish Every Book; Graduate From Them

• Some books are meant to be finished.
• Some are meant to be tasted.
• Some are meant to give you one brilliant idea and nothing more.

Finishing a bad or unhelpful book may look like discipline to you, but all you did was waste time you don’t even have with a book that you’ll probably never remember and will probably never impact your life. Let go without guilt. A book you don’t finish still made you wiser than a feed you scrolled.

9. Make Reading Your Anti-social Media Ritual

Every time you’re tempted to scroll, pick up your book instead. Over time, your brain starts linking books with comfort and scrolling with noise.

• Your impulse rewires.
• Your attention heals.

Reading becomes your refuge, not your homework.

10. Remember: A Reading Mind Is A Liberated Mind

In a world ruled by algorithms, reading is one of the few places your thoughts remain your own. Books stretch your attention span, deepen your empathy, stabilise your emotions, and give you access to people’s entire lifetimes of thinking, all without the chaos of the crowd. To read today is to reclaim yourself.

My Books Are In My Phone

Yes. With many areas lacking access to physical stores, and other personal preference, it is understandable that a majority of your books will be pdf-based or epubs. In cases like this, turn on airplane mode and clear all notifications from the top of your screen. Unless you’re fine deceiving yourself then you must do the hard thing and force your mind to go beyond wanting to scroll every time it sees your phone. 

Reading more is not about discipline but about rebellion. 

• Rebellion against distraction.
• Rebellion against mental clutter.
• Rebellion against living life in fragments.

If you want to read more, don’t force yourself. Craft an inner life so rich that books become your oxygen. In a society drowning in noise, scrolling, and short attention spans, the person who still reads is rare, powerful, and  unstoppable: and that can be you.