I read on my kindle, and i have a beeminder goal for reading.
I use the beeminder android app build-in timer to count how much I read, that works… ok when i read for like 10-15 minutes, but not so good when i read for only a few minutes, for example while waiting for the class to start, where taking out the phone, starting the timer and then stopping it may not be a good way, and even discourage me to read at all…
I know i could beemind pages, but I don’t really like that idea… i think it will push me to read faster with possibly less focus…
I know i could count the time with the kindle freetime thing, but the thing is not everything i want to read is something i bought from amazon so i cannot really use it…
Do any of you have the same problem? What do you do?
you could take it down to the simplest version - create a do-more goal for “did i read today or not?” where “yes i did” is a 1 and “no i didn’t” is a 0.
I dislike @chelsea’s idea because it violates the QS First principle. But for those who don’t care about Quantified Self, it may be an elegant solution.
My solution is TagTime. There’s a whole forum category for TagTime, for those who many not know:
To be honest i don’t really trust/like tagtime…it pings about every 45 minutes, and for small things it could not find me doing it for a few days, i know i could just keep a few days of safety buffer for that, but still I’m trying to spend as much time without the phone and any time of distraction to focus more…
I think what I’d really need is one of those android e-readers in which i could probably use an app to track how much i spend on the reading app…
do-more I never really read before i started this so I don’t have the problem of reading for fun to much, indeed I should start to read for fun too some classic books
I use tagtime for this as well (more specifically for “reading non-fiction”, which doesn’t have to be books). I actually find the variability of its reporting works quite well for me because it forces the occasional intense study session, but I have a schedule flexible enough that if tagtime says that I’m going to have to do six hours of reading today to get my goal then that’s not a huge problem (that doesn’t usually happen).
I have tagtime set to ping every half an hour rather than every 45 minutes. This seems to set a reasonably good annoyance/frequency balance for me.
You could figure out how much time you usually read for when you’re just picking a book up to pass a few minutes, and use that as an average time to add every time you do it? Sometimes it’ll be less than you actually read and sometimes more, but it should work out over time and it’s reasonably spontaneous.
I never really read before i started this so I don’t have the problem of reading for fun to much, indeed I should start to read for fun too some classic books