Making Time To Read and Reading for Enjoyment | Wednesday Reads

Photo from Rebecca Thomas on Pinterest 

So I'm crazy busy at the moment. You may know I'm doing the NCTJ course in Brighton which is 9-5, plus an hour every evening of shorthand practice, plus finding and writing a minimum of five news reports, plus blogging everyday. So many things to fit in a day that I'll be honest, reading has been being put on the sideline.

I've always read, and I've never had a problem with making time in my day to read. But now it seems that every second that seems to be a spare second isn't really a spare second because my to-do list is a hundred items long, and counting, and reading a chapter of my book is number 101.

I have read a couple of chapters on the bus in the morning, once the school children have stopped squashing everyone else into the corners of their seats that by the way are definitely big enough for me and you small eleven year old child. I am really enjoying 'Charlotte Gray' as of yet, Faulks isn't letting me down. But even the hour I'd normally devote to reading before bed has been replaced by another hour in which to be doing homework.

I don't read for any other reason than enjoyment, and I was thinking maybe that's the reason I can't bring myself to make the time for it when everything else on my to-do list is stuff I actually have to do or need to do, not just want to do. When I was still studying English Literature at school I could so easily make time to pick up whatever book I was studying, I'd read on the train to and from school, in the library in free periods, in bed, over breakfast, in the bath, literally anywhere. But I had to read those books, if I didn't read them I wouldn't have gotten the grades I did get, thank God after all that note taking.

Maybe making time to read isn't what you do if reading is simply for enjoyment. It's just not feasible to make time to do something you enjoy and want to do when you've got so many things that you enjoy and have to do. I do still enjoy the moments when I can squeeze a few pages into my day, and when I get a chapter in on the bus to college my brain definitely feels more stimulated, so it's not a case of other things are taking over the enjoyment I get from a good book, it's just that other things are more important than picking up a good book.

Obviously we're encouraged to do things we enjoy, to take a break from the things we have to do to relax for an hour or two. But I enjoy doing what I have to do, I enjoy (as bizarre as it may sound) going over shorthand and consolidating what I've learned, I enjoy searching out stories and I enjoy most of all writing them up. So maybe that's where the problem lies. It's not a case of putting something I enjoy aside for something I simply have to do, it's putting something I enjoy aside for something I both have to do but also enjoy doing.

I'm still striving towards completing my 'before Aus reading list' but as the days go by and more chapters go unread, it seems less likely.

What are your thoughts on reading for enjoyment? Do you sometimes find it difficult to make time for reading? Let me know in the comments.