scijessreads

How do you balance reading and everything else?

I modified the writing prompt from Sunday to fit more of what this blog is about. Not so much balancing work and home, but balancing what has become a prolific reading habit with everything else that needs to be accomplished in a day. My day job is as a science educator. For most of the year, I teach community college Biology. It is one of those jobs where technically there are “scheduled” hours, but in reality, you work when there is work to be done. I do try my best to not work much once I’m home in the evenings and to not work both days of the weekend (usually Saturday is my “off” day). There are always exceptions, but in the last few years, I have been much better at holding these boundaries.

As for reading, that is where I am currently unbalanced. At least for the last couple of years. Prior to 2022, I had been in a decades-long reading lull. Not that I never read, but it was not on the top of my list of things to do. I think I got burned out on reading so many research articles for school and work, that the last thing I wanted to do in my free time was read more. Which was kinda sad, as I grew up a bookworm. I would bring books EVERYWHERE. Always had one in my bag. As an only child, when brought to “adult” events, I would go sit in a corner and read. I always loved reading, but for a good chunk of my young adult life, I let it fall by the wayside.

Last year, a friend got me into the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. These books had me falling in love with reading again. I devoured them (all 5 in less than two weeks). And then I went ahead and got a Kindle Unlimited subscription and found myself falling down a treasure trove of romance and smut and fantasy (sometimes all three in one book). And I found that I read faster with eBooks than with physical books (and I have always been a fast reader). And in the last 6 months or so I found that I liked listening to audiobooks too (now that I can put them at 1.5-2x speed and still find them enjoyable). Previously I saved them for road trips, but now they are my daily commute books.

I have the Kindle app on my phone, laptop, and iPad, an actual Kindle, and the ability to read basically any time I have a break at work. Or am waiting in line. Or just sitting at a coffee shop and people-watching. I read when I wake up, and read when I get back home. I’ve drastically cut down on my “TV” watching (put in air quotes because it’s more like Netflix and streaming, but it’s basically the same). I read instead of watching things. And my lifestyle is as a single person with no kids. So I only have to work around my schedule, and no one else’s. It makes for ample time to rip through books. During a good run, I can basically average out to a book a day. Some are shorter novellas, others longer epics. Usually, I have an eBook, an audiobook, and a physical book all going at once. And often a different eBook on each device (phone, iPad, and Kindle).

So, there isn’t really balance. But for now, this is what works for my life. And I love being able to read so much. When I hit a slump, I do tend to reread old favorites and definitely count them as reads on my Goodreads list because I am reading something. Of all the phases to have in a lifetime, I think I like this reading phase the best of them all.