Lengthen Your Attention Span by Reading Books

I used to be a REAL book reader. I know this because for many years I've kept a ledger of all the books I read. The log shows that I read 60, 70, even 90 books in some years. But last year? A whopping 11 books.

What happened? It feels like I read all the time. I have a stack of books on the nightstand like always, plus a bookcase in the living room with dozens more that I'm looking forward to reading . . . someday.What happened is that, like so many of us, I started living and working online, so much so that many weeks I forget to read anything longer than a blog post, a news item, or maybe a magazine article. This old liberal-arts major, who writes for a living and hopes to write books of his own someday, has fallen victim to Internet-induced short-attention-span syndrome.

 Sound familiar? Maybe you're in that same boat with me?

Here's the thing: the Internet can be great, and it can bring us all kinds of good things (along with piles of junk), but it doesn't -- it can't -- replace the deep pleasure of sitting down for an hour or two to read a book.

It can't replace the mental workout of reading a book, either; reading blog posts, tweets, or Facebook updates, even great ones, simply doesn't exercise your concentration the way that reading a good book does. Reading books is also far more rewarding, calming, and life-affirming than watching television, and it builds the kinds of cognitive skills that we need to face life's troubles.

If you've been reading this column for long, you know I'm full of advice and encouragement when it comes to physical fitness. Well, now I'm encouraging you to join me in launching a program of mental fitness built around reading books.

Here's how I'm getting started:

• Putting my reading ledger out where I'll see it. It's the same idea as keeping a workout log: the more steadily you remind yourself of your goals and your progress, the more likely you are to stick with the program.
• Focusing on one book at a time. One of my big problems -- made worse by my Web-surfing habits -- is to try to read several books at a time. Now I'm picking one book and giving it all my attention until it's done.
• Setting aside certain times for reading. If I sit down to the computer after dinner at home, I'm sunk. What with work e-mail, personal e-mail, Twitter, my RSS reader, and everything else, I might end up parked there for three hours. It's better by far for me to keep the computer turned off, settle into my favorite chair, and spend an hour reading a book.
• Reading what I want to read. There are plenty of books I think I ought to read, but even the best book can seem like a chore if you treat it like one. So now I'm indulging in the non-guilty pleasure of reading books I want to read.
• Having a number in mind. I don't need to read 90 books in a year to feel like I'm reading enough, but two or three books a month is certainly a reasonable goal. Simply keeping such a number in mind makes it far likelier that I'll read that many.

That's what I'm doing to become a real book reader again. Care to join me?