How do you read one book per week? We all know that those who read prosper, as cliche as that may sound. So, what’s the best approach to persuade oneself to pick up a book and read it at a reasonable speed? You can almost guarantee that you’ll read a book a week if you use three psychological tactics to help you achieve just that.

Book An Appointment

The first is a concept known as implementation intention, which is essentially setting an appointment. See, the most challenging part of reading is getting started. So many people buy books they like, but never read them. By physically writing down a “reading schedule”, you’re effectively making an appointment with yourself to do so. Let’s face it; we don’t skip our appointments. When was the last time you missed a doctor’s appointment? Sure, you were a little late. When you make an appointment, you know you have to show up, and you typically do.

Chunking Express

The second psychological strategy for reading a book a week is to adopt a technique known as chunking. Essentially, it is breaking down an enormous task into smaller ones. The most common reason why people begin reading books but never finish them is that the task appears to be far too daunting. It seems that we will be unable to complete the task. Take a look at the length of the average nonfiction book, which is around 200 pages. How long do you think for you to read that entire thing in one sitting? 1000 hours, perhaps? In actuality, the average human can read a 200-page book in approximately five hours, which implies you need to read for 45 minutes per day, which is probably only a chapter or two. When you break down a book into chapters and even further into subsections, as most nonfiction books do, your brain will no longer see it as a huge obstacle to overcome.

Lead Us To Temptation?

Finally, the last trick to reading a book a week is to use a technique known as temptation bundling, which entails attaching a task that you don’t particularly enjoy to something that you do. For example, you could tell yourself that you’ll reward yourself with the next episode or segment of that TV show you enjoy watching after each chapter or subsection of a chapter you read. After a few times of doing this, reading will begin to feel good because your brain will start to associate it with pleasure. You may find that you will start to read more chapters than you require.

You’ll end up with something like this if you combine all three tricks. Okay, I’ll read the next chapter of my book tomorrow after lunch at home. I also get to watch the next segment of the new Euphoria episode for every chapter I read. Give it a try. I’m confident you’ll find yourself reading a lot more.