/ JOURNAL
Making space
I don’t make new year’s resolutions, but I do think about things I’d like to get better at. Good habits that I want to form. And one of those is reading more fiction.
Over the last decade I've neglected fiction in favour of work-related reading and endless football-related comfort reading.
One of the things I’m learning this year is that in order to read more, I need to consciously do less of something else in order to make the space for the reading to happen. Obvious, right? But I think I tend to try and take on new habits on top all the things that I’m already doing then feeling disappointed in myself for not succeeding. A bad habit.
Inspired by Caroline Crampton’s reflections on how she read in 2024 in Reading A Lot, But Differently, I’m making space by listening to fewer podcasts; being even stricter with my daily screen time on Bluesky and Mastodon; and serendipitously being off Instagram altogether (you know why).
So far it’s working and I’m reaching for a novel because I want to pick it back up, not because I think I should. Right now that’s Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1. Auster is long-time favourite from the pre-digital days when I was a far more confident reader. He felt the most appropriate of choices.
One positive side effect of this is that I'm listening to far more music while reading. Ambient, classical, and jazz from the period Auster's book is set in and taking real pleasure in new discoveries and the general wellbeing that I know I get from being immersed in sounds as well as words.
I’m still wrestling with favouring the convenience of ebooks over the tactile promise of print, but maybe that’s for next year.