How To: Effectively Avoid Falling Into A Reading Slump

As the title suggests, I'll be listing a few effective strategies I tried to avoid falling into a reading slump. First, some necessary preamble: this isn't a guide to breaking out of a reading slump because, quite frankly, I still don't know how to do that for myself just yet. In fact, as I type up this post I am in the midst of the worst reading slump I've experienced to date, the inspiration for this post. This is a poorly compiled list of ways to potentially avoid falling into one. Also, I feel I must spell out the following: it's very possible that only very few or none of the items/strategies are applicable to your case or you'll find that they're not to your liking. And that's totally fine! Again, some things might work for some people and others not. These are just a few things I found help me keep to my reading habit. You might even find that a few of these overlap with your own.

Strictly based on my experience, this is probably the most effective way to shirk a potential tragedy. If you're a nostalgic reader like me, then you'll most definitely find this helpful, reading one of my favorite books always put me in a good headspace. I usually do this after reading a book I wasn't particularly a fan of and need to be reminded how great literature can be.

Getting yourself into the habit of leisure reading every day could be the best way to avoid this problem altogether. If you read often enough, reading will soon become second nature to you. If not out of a desire to read, you'll find that you pick up a book every day, out of habit.

Admittedly, I'm not the most adventurous reader. As a result, I inadvertently restrict myself to a select few genres and don't venture to explore others. Don't do this. You'll deprive yourself of worlds of great literature. I challenge you to pick up a book that you wouldn't normally read and you just might find that it (the book, the genre, or both) becomes a favorite!

Read or watch videos of POSITIVE non-spoiler reviews of discussions of books. This one is the strategy I utilize the least but is helpful nonetheless. The excitement the reviewer emanates through page or screen is sometimes motivation enough for me to continue reading my own book.

A change of atmosphere helps more than you know. Whenever I go to my local Barnes and Noble or library, I get a lot of reading done. Merely being surrounded by books and having other people reading around me is incentive enough for me to do the same. Try it!