Almost everyone says they want to read more books, yet the stack on the bedside table only grows taller. It is not that we dislike reading. It is that between long office hours, a draining commute, family duties, and a phone designed to hold our attention, books quietly slip to the bottom of the list. By the time you flop onto the sofa at night, a quick scroll feels easier than opening chapter three.
The encouraging truth is that reading more is far less about discipline than about design. People who get through many books each year are rarely superhuman; they have simply built small systems that make reading the easy, obvious choice. This guide walks through practical ways to read more books that fit real life in Singapore, without guilt-tripping yourself or pretending you have hours of spare time you do not.
Let Go of the Pressure to Read More
Before any tactic, it helps to drop a few beliefs that quietly stop people from reading. The first is the idea that you must finish every book you start. You do not. If a book bores you fifty pages in, put it down and pick another. Reading is not an exam, and abandoning a dull book frees you to enjoy one you actually like.
The second myth is that reading only counts if it is serious literature. A gripping thriller, a local memoir, or a practical career book all count. The goal is to build the habit and the pleasure first; the range will broaden naturally once reading is part of your week. Enjoyment is what keeps you turning pages, and a book finished beats a worthy one abandoned.
Make Books Easier to Reach Than Your Phone
Most reading is lost to friction. The book is in the bedroom, the phone is in your hand, and the phone wins by default. The fix is to reverse that convenience so a book is always the closest option.
- Keep a physical book in your bag, by the sofa, and at your bedside, so you are never more than an arm’s reach from one.
- Install the NLB app and borrow ebooks and audiobooks free, so your phone becomes a reading device rather than only a distraction.
- Move social apps off your home screen and put a reading app in their place, adding a few seconds of friction to scrolling.
- Keep a short list of what to read next, so you never lose momentum hunting for the next title.
The National Library Board deserves special mention. With a library card you can borrow physical books across the island and stream a huge catalogue of ebooks and audiobooks through the app, all at no cost. Removing the price and the trip to a shop takes away two of the biggest excuses at once.
Use the Pockets of Time You Already Have
You do not need a free evening to read more books. You need to notice the small gaps that already exist and fill a few of them with pages instead of scrolling. Fifteen minutes here and there adds up to several books a year without carving out any grand new block of time.
| Moment in the day | Common default | Reading swap |
|---|---|---|
| MRT or bus commute | Scrolling social media | A few pages or an audiobook |
| Lunch break alone | Watching short videos | One chapter with your meal |
| Queueing or waiting | Refreshing the phone | An ebook on the NLB app |
| The last 20 minutes before bed | One more episode | A physical book, phone charging away |
Audiobooks are worth a special word for busy people. They let you get through books while commuting, doing housework, or walking for exercise, turning otherwise dead time into reading time. Some readers feel this is cheating, but taking in a book is taking in a book, and for a packed schedule it can be the difference between reading and not.
Set a Goal You Will Not Resent
Ambitious targets like fifty books a year can motivate some people and crush others. If a big number turns reading into a stressful race, it defeats the purpose. A gentler approach is to anchor on time or a tiny daily minimum rather than a yearly total.
Try committing to just ten pages a day, or twenty minutes before bed. The bar is deliberately low so you clear it even when you are tired, and on good days you will often read far more once you have started. Habit stacking helps here too: attach reading to something you already do, such as reading a few pages every night right after you brush your teeth, or opening the NLB app the moment you sit down on the train.
If you enjoy tracking, a simple note of what you finish, or a reading community, can add a little momentum. Just make sure the tracking motivates rather than shames you. The point is a longer reading life, not a tidy scoreboard.
Keep the Habit Alive When Life Gets Busy
Even a solid reading habit will wobble during a hectic season at work or a stretch of bad sleep, and that is completely normal. What matters is not missing a day but avoiding a long drift away from books altogether. A few honest habits keep the thread from breaking:
- Keep a very short minimum for bad days, even a single page, so the streak of identity as a reader survives.
- Always have your next book chosen before you finish the current one, since the gap between books is where many people stall.
- Mix formats freely, moving between print, ebook, and audiobook depending on your day and energy.
- Do not punish yourself for a slow month. Reading ebbs and flows, and a gentle return beats guilt-fuelled bingeing followed by burnout.
Reading more books is ultimately about making room for something that genuinely enriches you, not about hitting a number to impress anyone. Build the small systems, remove the friction, and let curiosity do the rest. Over a year of ordinary weeks, those quiet fifteen-minute habits turn into a shelf you are proud of and a mind that is a little wider than before.
Explore more
A reading life is easier to sustain when it sits inside good routines. See building a daily reading habit for making it automatic, and how to learn anything faster to get more from what you read. To hold on to the best ideas, try building a personal knowledge system for notes worth keeping.