Analyze This: Reading Slumps


We all get them. Times when no matter what you do, you just can't find the motivation to read. Kind of funny, isn't it? The people who are always touted as the "readers" sometimes feel at a loss when they just don't want to read.

Reading or not reading never used to be that big of a deal to me, unless it pertained to doing homework (because let's face it, if you don't feel like reading for your homework, you pretty much just have to suck it up). But when I start blogging regularly during the summers (and now hopefully, year-round), my reading slumps become a bigger deal.

That is, until I started thinking. The way that I recover from my reading slumps is simply not to read. And that stresses me out, but that's the fastest way for me to emerge from these slumps.

If I'm into a TV show or just wanna sit and research random stuff on the internet, then I need to let myself do that. Because if I try to force myself to do something, I end up hating it.

So what if I use a week watching the latest episodes of Scandal? I enjoy my time and when I get tired of watching TV, I move back to books and am able to breeze through books like crazy. And, when I watch TV, I multi-task by doing other things so that's an unexpected bonus as well.

I guess the point of this revelation is this: you can't force yourself to do something that you just don't feel like doing (or, I guess, you can, but it sometimes doesn't work out well). If I let myself follow my own fluctuations in interest, I end up happier and more productive. I know myself better than I think I do, and I work better and more efficiently than I might expect. I just need to trust myself more.

What about you guys? What do you do when you're in a reading slump?

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