How I Read 30 Books in 31 Days | Lessons from a Reading Challenge

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Yes, you read that title correctly. I read 30 books in 31 days! That’s almost one book a day. If that seems impossible to you, don’t worry, it seemed impossible to me too! And to be fully honest, I still can’t quite believe I completed this reading challenge. Today, I want to talk about how I managed to read all these books. I share my problems, process and the lessons I learned from this ridiculous reading challenge.

Problems I Faced During the Reading Challenge

No challenge is without its problems, otherwise, it wouldn’t be called a challenge, right? And this chaotic endeavour was no exception! There were a few roadblocks that I encountered along the way, so I thought I’d share them with you. After all, struggles are part of life and success and you deserve to know what I came up against!

Not Enough Time to Read

On some days, I simply didn’t have a lot of time to read. This is a simple fact of life, largely imposed on me by outside forces. While I did read pretty much every day in January, I didn’t always finish one book a day. Of course, that then lead to me falling behind on the challenge and panicking a little. If I was a smarter person, I probably would have picked a less busy month to complete this challenge. But I am a little chaos demon with two brain cells, so who is surprised? I had university deadlines (though luckily no regular classes) and work that needed to be done. So some days, reading simply couldn’t be my priority!

No Next Read Picked

Ah, the dreaded moment of picking my next read. This turned out to be surprisingly hard! Having just finished a book and staring into the abyss of nothingness is a perfect way to make me freeze and read nothing at all. I noticed that whenever I hadn’t at least considered a few different books to read next, I’d be paralysed by the decision. This in turn decreased my reading time. Because thinking about what to read isn’t actually reading!

Psst, if you want to keep up with what I’m reading at any given time, you can follow me on Goodreads and TheStorygraph!

Wrong Book, Wrong Time

Sometimes a book just isn’t for me. Most of the time, that has nothing to do with the book, it’s just not my vibe. One of my 2022 goals is to DNF more liberally and I had a few chances to follow through this month. Admittedly, DNFing a book when I’m trying to read as much as possible hurt a little. But I promise it’s for the greater good. DNFing allowed me to move onto something I actually wanted to read…which meant I actually read it way faster than a book I hated! But encountering less than perfect books in the first place definitely cost me time and brain space and slowed me down in the pursuit of devouring books.

How I Read 30 Books in a Month…and you can too!

Commit to the Reading Challenge

I think the first step when embarking on any challenge is to really commit to it. Ask yourself “do I really want to do this? And if so, why?”. My reason was quite simple, I just wanted to see if I could read this much. Admittedly, I am a big fan of proving myself wrong. I think that’s where my stubbornness comes out to play! So for this reading challenge, my commitment to trying my best was instrumental.

Make a TBR…or Don’t

Your mileage may vary here, but I’m a massive mood reader. In fact, I once wrote a whole post about how I pick what to read as a mood reader! Maybe you’re the kind of person who thrives when setting a strict TBR. In that case, all the power to you. Personally, I don’t think I could’ve done this challenge with a TBR set out for me. What kept me going was the ability to quickly shift according to what genre I was in the mood for. So when embarking on a challenge like this, I highly recommend you listen to your moods and find books that match them.

Find Short Books

This one is a little obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: reading shorter books means you can finish more books. I think plenty of us have read shorter books towards the end of the year, trying to hit our reading goals. And there’s no shame in that! Personally, I love short books! The attempt to read 30 books in 31 days was the perfect excuse for me to read some of the novellas on my TBR.

Listen to Audiobooks

I’m already an audiobook lover, but I don’t think this challenge would’ve been possible for me without audiobooks. Audiobooks exponentially increase the time I can spend reading. During this challenge, I listened to audiobooks all the time! Walking, cooking, cleaning, playing Animal Crossing…you name it, I probably had an audiobook playing in the background. Not only are audiobooks fun (hi audiobook narrators, I love you!), they can help me fully sink into a story.

Create a Reading Schedule

Alright, I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t follow this advice very closely. If I did this challenge again, I would probably try and set aside specific times on my calendar just for reading. Reading for 30 minutes in the morning or evening can put quite a dent into a challenge like this! However, my life currently doesn’t have a lot of routine as is, so I mainly followed a more chaotic approach. I simply read whenever I could! Of course, some semblance of routine emerged from that. I found myself listening to my audiobook first thing in the morning while making breakfast, on train journeys or in the supermarket. All of those are pretty regular occurrences in my life and using them to read simply became part of the activity.

Never be without a book

One of the advantages of being an avid audiobook lover is that I’m never without a book. My whole library is on my phone! As long as it’s charged and I have headphones with me, I’m good to go. If you prefer reading physical books, making sure to always have your book with you is golden. Having a book with you means you can use those “in-between” moments that otherwise might be spent scrolling on your phone. During this reading challenge, I tried to make the conscious effort to pick my book over whatever book Twitter had to offer. And it made me read so much more!

Follow Your Curiosity

This point is sort of similar to my process of picking books as a mood reader. But regardless of whether or not you are a mood reader, staying curious is invaluable for reading this many books! For example, after binging quite a few seasons of Criminal Minds, I was curious to read some nonfiction books about profiling. So I read two of them! That’s two books down on the challenge and curiosity satisfied. Curiosity will naturally make you want to read. It drives you to pick up that book and get started. So if you want to read a lot of books, follow your curiosity! It might lead you to new genres and interesting places.

Lessons I Learned From the Reading Challenge

At the end of the month, I had read 30 books. I won the challenge, yay! But I gained a lot more than just the satisfaction of seeing that sweet number 30 on my Goodreads. I learned a few lessons along the way, too! So here are the most important ones:

I Have Time to Read

Didn’t I just say that a problem was not enough time? Yes! But that was for individual days where I wasn’t able to finish an entire book. Which admittedly, is a pretty lofty endeavour anyway. What I learned is that I do in fact have time to read! I did, after all, manage to read this much in a month! That time had to come from somewhere. Yes, other hobbies faded into the background. But this reading challenge taught me that I can in fact find time to read, even when I’m busy! And that’s a really good lesson for the times when reading stresses me out and days seem too short.

Consistency Matters

The biggest reason for me being able to read this much was consistency. I read pretty much every single day! The compound effect is real! A bunch of regular, small reading sessions do add up quickly. And before I knew it, I had read a bunch of books! So going forward, I want to focus on truly making reading a habit.

I am Capable of More Than I Think

This is more of a general life lesson, but an important one. I committed to this challenge on a whim without much thought. My month bounced between me not thinking I could possibly do this and being certain I could. It truly was a wild ride. And then I did it! I proved to myself that I am capable of reading 30 books in a month. Most importantly, I set a goal and followed through. You can’t tell me that doesn’t inspire confidence.

Too Much Reading Does Exist

How could reading too much possibly be an issue? Reading slumps and a fried brain, that’s how! At the end of this reading challenge, my brain was filled with stories. On the one hand, this was a fantastic feeling! So many wonderful worlds I got to visit, my brain was buzzing with inspiration. On the other hand, my brain was also woefully overstimulated and quite frankly burned out. Reading a book a day is simply not a sustainable reading pace for me. Doing it for a month was fun, exciting and a true challenge. But for me, reading at this speed would definitely make reading less fun in the long run.

If you are curious which books I ended up reading during this challenge, you can find all of them in my massive January Wrap-Up!

Some Closing Words & Let’s Chat

I don’t think reading this much makes me a better reader. At the end of the day, it’s literally just a number. But I do think that challenging myself changed my reading for the better! I picked up books I’d been eyeing for a while, read across genres and followed my interests. I allowed myself to build momentum and made a promise to commit to reading every day. And all of those choices meant I had a great reading month, outside of any numbers! While this pace isn’t something I want to continue (or physically could!), I had a great time with this reading challenge. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll try it again and implement the lessons I learned.

⭐ Have you ever participated in a reading challenge like this?

⭐ What are your strategies for reading a lot of books?

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I hope you have a lovely day,