This type of reading challenge might be much more fun to see in a video format. But this blog is all I’ve got for you today, so I’m going to try to make it as fun as possible! 🙂 Last year I made a post talking about reading habits I wanted to adapt. You might remember me drawing my conclusions a few weeks ago.
One of those habits was to read every day. It seemed like a great idea, especially since I tend to leave all of my reading for the weekends and then have too many things piled up to do in just a couple of days.
Last month I decided to give it a go and read every single day for an entire month. I didn’t have any limits of pages, so as long as I read a couple of pages every day (i.e. made an effort to pick up a book) it counted as a successful day!
| MY GOALS FOR THIS READING CHALLENGE |
|---|
- to read every day,
- no minimum or maximum number of pages,
- to go through books during the week and finish them off at the weekends,
- unload my weekends to be able to dedicate time to other things.
| MY THOUGHTS DURING THE EXPERIMENT |
|---|
DAY 1: I only read a little bit during my lunch break (which is a rare occurrence) from «Lost and Wanted» by Nell Freudenberger and decided to DNF it. Great start! 👍😅
DAY 2: Starting a new book definitely helped me to read a bit more, but with various reviews that I needed to write, blog posts to prepare, studying, etc. I only managed to read 70ish pages at the end of the day. The good thing is that I’m enjoying my current read.
DAY 5: It’s 11 am and I finished «When I was Ten» reading the last 90 pages! I also read the Part 1 of new Christopher Paolini’s book (approx. 200 pages) and 52 pages of «The Once and Future Witches» by Alix E. Harrow! So far I’m feeling good about reading every day, mostly because I don’t put any pressure on myself on how many pages I need to read. I just know that sometime today I will need to pick up my book. If I have time and it’s engaging I’ll read a lot, if I don’t have time then I read 30-50 pages and still complete my daily reading goal. 🤩
DAY 8: 110 pages of «The Song of Achilles». I decided to focus on one book at a time and it’s proven to work well.
DAY 9: I don’t think it was a good idea to start reading 2 slow books during the same week. I hope I can finish them during the weekend…
DAY 12: 203 pages of «The Ten Riddles of Eartha Quicksmith», and 50 more pages of «The Once and Future Witches». I’m really not loving Alix E. Harrow’s writing style. It makes my brain all foggy… 🤯 But I do love the story and the sisters… Argghh. I just wish it wasn’t such a chore to read this book.
DAY 14: Oh my, I just forgot about the challenge! 🤦♀️
DAY 17: FINALLY! I powered through «The Once and Future Witches»!
DAY 18: As I’m a bit behind on this week’s reading, I started «The Kite Runner» and already managed to read almost 100 pages. So hopefully I’ll be able to read and review it before next week. Ideally, I’d love to finish «Playing Nice» as well… Not sure if it will happen.
DAY 19: My plan today is to finish «The Kite Runner» (I still have over 200 pages left) and then read some more of «Playing Nice». I know I won’t finish it though as next week it The Reading Rush and I’m so excited about my TBR!!!! «The Kite Runner» will be my 9th book of this month. Great progress! And if I manage to read all 7 books from my The Reading Rush TBR and then some more books before the month is over… July was definitely the right month to try this challenge, but I will be taking things much slower in August.🙌
DAY 20: The Reading Rush day 1!!!! Yaaah! 🎉 I started with «Wilder Girls» by Rory Power and OMG it’s so weird, but amazing at the same time. I actually didn’t have a lot of time to read, but I still managed to get through 210 pages and only have a little bit over 100 pages to finish tomorrow.
DAY 26: I’m back in the reading mood. That book was really dragging me down. I read «Here in the real world» and «Odessa» all in one day! And even 50ish pages of «Playing Nice», which I’m planning to finish next week.
DAY 27: Only 5 days left of this challenge!!! Do I want it to be over? Hm… 🤷♂️
| THINGS I LEARNED |
|---|
- I don’t want this to become my new habit! As much as I like the idea of reading every single day, even if I don’t put any pressure on myself to read a certain number of pages, I definitely don’t want to read every single day… Or force myself into it when I’m not in the reading mood.
- It was easier than I thought! [even though I did fail, technically] The key was to not have a minimum number of pages, and it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.
- Reading every day (even a little bit) = 18 read books in one month! July was my second best reading month ever, mostly due to this challenge and also the Reading Rush.
- During a busy day 20 pages seem to be my limit. Apparently I have no problem reading at least 20 pages even when tired. There were a lot of days I marked “busy” with the same number of pages read. I should have timed myself to see how long, on average, it took me to read those 20 pages.
- I might attempt this again in the future but with a min. n.º of pages per day! THAT would be an interesting challenge. 😀
This experiment was a lot of fun! And I made the right call to do it during the Reading Rush month, otherwise I might have given up on it even earlier.
P.S. Last year I did another blogging experiment, to see if I could use a speech-to-text app to reduce the time I spend writing reviews!
What do you think about reading every day? Is it something you already do? Would you like to try this challenge? Let’s chat! ❤
Connect with me on GoodReads | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
WhimsyPages 
I’m glad you had a lot of fun doing this reading experiment! I don’t know if I would be able to do this, because some days I just don’t feel like reading haha.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think the fact that I didn’t have any daily page goal helped a lot, but I still pretty much gave up on reading towards the end of the month 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love that you challenge yourself in interesting ways 🙂 But I totally agree with what you said about how making yourself read every day would take the fun out of it. I think I have the habit of reading every day before bed (at least 30mins-1hr) is a habit that I built up on when I was younger so when I don’t read at least a bit every day now it feels funny. But there are times (*cough* animal crossing days *cough*) when that also doesn’t happen and it’s totally okay! Hope you continue experimenting and having fun 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ahah, the animal crossing days were WILD! 😀 But I know what you mean. I’m the same. I definitely try to read a little bit every day, but with work, blog, studying and wanting to spend some time with bf at the end of the day, sometimes it’s just not realistic. However, if I don’t finish a book every 3-5 days, I usually start wondering if something is wrong and why am I not reading at my usual pace 😀
LikeLike
This was such a fun challenge!! I totally agree with you that the trick is probably not to set a “minimum number of page” because then you just end up dreading finishing them if you’re tired or just not in the mood! I try to read a bit each day, but sometimes after a super long afternoon or if I’m not feeling great I just can’t convince myself to put energy into reading. I’m glad this challenge went well for you and glad you learned more about what you prefer!! (:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you ❤ Yeah, it can be so difficult to carve time to read during the work days, and then I also don't want to leave my bf there doing his own things, if we don't see each other all day 😀 So at least we can watch a movie together, or something.
I actually thought I would love reading every single day, but as it turns out, it sometimes took the fun out of reading. Besides, I already read ALMOST every day, so I guess it's good enough 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
I loved reading this! I love reading about others reading habits! 😃
I already read every day so this wouldn’t be a challenge to me, but that’s awesome that you tried even if you realized it wasn’t for you.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, hun ❤ I do too! 😀 And watching everyone's routine videos or reading vlogs on youtube. It's like my new addiction. Lol I guess if I spent less time on Youtube I would actually find more time to read every day. Ahah
LikeLiked by 1 person
Right?! There’s something so relaxing about reading/watching people’s routines and habits. Haha that is true! 😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh no… I would fail this challenge immediately. And purposefully. It’s ridiculous. Tell me to do something and I automatically don’t want to do it 😂😂😂I pretty much read most days anyway, I’m just a slow reader! 😂😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
🤣🤣 I love structure and to do lists. So having this challenge actually prompted me to read more, but every single day can be a challenge sometimes. Like you, I already read almost every day. I think doing other activities, besides reading, is also a good thing. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting idea… mind you, I read every day no matter what, but I guess this could help for people who don’t normally do that.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! That’s wonderful! I read almost every day, but there are def some days when everything gets in the way and by the time I get into bed, all I want to do is sleep 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, see… my biggest vice means that about six times a day, I just sit down and read. That vice being that I smoke, and my husband won’t let me smoke inside the house, so I go outside on my balcony with my Kindle and my coffee, and my cigarettes! Naughty of me, but still…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I bet this would be super productive in terms of quantity of books read for me, but I couldn’t make it a regular habit especially because when school starts again – I’ll be exhausted all the time! But it’d be fun to try in one month!! ;D
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, for sure. I managed to read 18 in one month, which is CRAZY! 😀 But I’m not planning to do this again any time soon. I wish the days would have a bit more time in them to be able to do more things. Lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
This post was so much fun to read! It’s interesting to see how it played out. That it did really boost your reading as far as volume goes, but the downside was that you had to force yourself to read when you weren’t in the mood. I would love to see more experiments in the future! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, hun ❤ I actually thought it would much more difficult, but I think the fact that I didn't have any page limit helped a lot, and there were quite a lot of days when I read literally 10-20 pages and called it for the day. Lol
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes that was a great idea, taking some of the pressure off for yourself. I notice that when I set goals for myself like “I really want to read 100 pages today” it always turns out to feeling like a chore.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I LOVE this, honey!! ❤️ I think it’s a smart way to try to improve yourself and test yourself with your reading skills and that’s great, but it’s certainly challenging because it can be draining or feel like it’s something you “have to do” as an obligation, you know? 🤔 but it’s absolutely interesting to see your experience!!! LOVE IT 😍
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!! 🙂 Yeah, that’s so true. By the end of the month, I couldn’t keep it up anymore 😀 especially because I HAD to read. But I’m still glad that I managed to read so many books in one month.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a great way to challenge yourself! I love how you’re always thinking outside the box. 😍
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much 🙂 It’s going to be a while before I’ll be able to do any new reading challenges, but I have a few I’d love to try as soon as I have some more free time!
LikeLike
That was an interesting experiment. I like that you were able to note that you read around 20 pages on a busy day. Now I’m curious how many pages I read on a busy day versus a free day. 18 books?! I might have to follow suit and do this experiment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That would be amazing! I’d love to see you trying this out. I LOVE watching other people’s reading experiments on youtube. I became obsesses with Kayla’s closet challenge last year, binge watched all of the videos on that “series” 😀
LikeLike