Lessons in reading, from scrolling

Micro-habits and mindset patterns that make books feel as easy and irresistible as the feed

Join me for our first-ever Zoom Book Chat on Sept 6 at 1 PM Central! We'll talk about how our reading is going and what plans we have for the rest of the year. This session is just for paid subscribers, and I’ll send the invite a few days before. If you’d like to upgrade, I’m offering a special 25% discount through Sept 6. Hope to see you there!

People often ask me how I find the time to read as much as I do. The question behind the question is always the same: how can anyone keep up with reading inside a life already stretched thin?

I don’t have a perfect answer, but the one I return to again and again is this: pay attention to your screen time. My reading life doesn’t thrive because I am unusually disciplined (honestly, I am NOT a disciplined person). It continues because I keep learning, over and over, how to redirect the time and attention I might otherwise give to my phone.

And I don’t blame myself (or anyone else) for scrolling. An entire industry is built to keep us swiping. I know this because I work in tech, in user experience design to boot. On a daily basis, I sit in the meetings where teams talk about making digital products irresistible. It’s literally my job. Which makes me notice, maybe more than most, how closely scrolling and reading live side by side in my brain.

What I keep circling back to is this: scrolling shows me what my brain likes. It shows me why an activity feels easy, automatic, even inevitable. And I’ve come to the realization that instead of fighting that impulse, I can practice redirecting it. I try to take the mechanics of scrolling — availability, novelty, quick satisfaction — and hand them to my books. Some days it works beautifully, other days I fall back into the feed. The point isn’t mastery. The point is practice.

I remind myself constantly that the pull of the feed is not about weakness but about psychology. We are not glued to our phones because we are lazy or stupid. Scrolling feels inevitable because it offers:

• Instant availability → the phone is in my pocket, the app opens in a second.

• A low barrier to entry → I don’t need context or commitment, I just dip in.

• Small hits of novelty → every swipe gives me something new.

• An infinite scroll → I never “finish,” there is always one more post waiting.

• Variable rewards → sometimes it’s dull, sometimes it sparkles (my brain loves this).

• Social belonging → likes, comments, the sense that others are here; that I am here.

• Easy stopping and restarting → I can drop it mid-scroll and come right back.

• Micro-doses of satisfaction → each post is complete in itself.

No wonder I reach for my phone a hundred times a day. Literally. 🤮

I started asking myself: what if I borrowed those same mechanics for books? I don’t need to retrain my brain, just redirect it. And here’s how that works — same principles, applied in an effort to make reading a default activity similar to scrolling.

There’s a book in that pile of beach towels.

• Constant availability → I leave books everywhere: on counters, in bags, in the car. When I leave the house, I bring my book along with my cell phone. In the photo above I am getting ready to leave the house for the pool, and in that pile of towels was whatever I was reading that week.

• A low barrier to entry → I keep slim volumes, poetry, journals within reach and audiobooks queued up for chores. Reading doesn’t always mean a grand stretch of quiet, it can mean Patti Smith in my earbuds while I do the dishes. This past weekend I read while hanging out with family and friends at a lake house in Arkansas. I could have been scrolling but I chose to read instead, even as I was chit-chatting with Ben and Kyle. I reported to work on Monday and no reading quizzes were assigned. (B&K will kill me if they saw that I posted this video.)

• Built-in novelty → I am working on several books at once: fiction, nonfiction, poetry. There is always something fresh to flip to.

• A kind of infinite scroll → I chain books together by author, theme, even by a stray mention in a blurb. Reading on Substack almost guarantees my next book. I try to always have something lined up, even if I change my mind later. I love my TBR journal.

• Variable rewards → some pages bore me, others stun me. That unpredictability keeps me turning.

• A (para) social dimension → I share notes, trade recommendations, tandem-read. In the context of reading, I don’t mind the parasocial relationships at all. Honestly, what could be better than feeling super connected with a complete stranger over a book you both loved?! Just this past week,

  Stacey
  and I co-processed The Wall and it was just so beautiful to talk (ok, cry) about it together.

• Easy stopping and restarting → bookmarks, sticky notes, scribbles. I make it easy to drop back in mid-paragraph.

• Micro-satisfaction → I value the tiniest completions: a poem, a vignette, ten pages. Bit by bit, the pages pile up.

📚 A tiny proof point

On Tuesday, for instance, I worked from the office instead of home. Normally, that means dead time between tasks — the kind of moment when I would usually scroll. But I had brought Leverage by

Amran Gowani

with me and while waiting for my lunch delivery I reached for it. I only read ten pages. But that is the point. I don’t ask myself what do I do now? The reflex is already there: reach for the book. The same way I might have reached for my phone. Time confetti!!!

Most days, I feel like I am toggling between two feeds. One is infinite scroll. The other is infinite books. Scrolling hijacks my reward system but reading tries to rewire it back to health. I don’t always get it right. Some days I lose an hour to Instagram, some nights I watch YouTube instead of reading. But more and more, books feel like the easier choice, not because I am disciplined, but because I am practicing, again and again, how to make them as easy, as available, as automatic as my phone.

That is the real secret. Not mastery, not purity. Just redirection. Just reframing. Just the stubborn insistence that my attention belongs to me and I can choose to give it, swipe by swipe, page by page, to what sustains me.

🤓 Some questions for you:

• What is one tiny habit that helps you reach for a book instead of your phone?

• Do you think of your reading life as something steady and continuous, or more like bursts and binges?

• If scrolling shows us what our brains like, what have you learned about your own brain from the way you read?

---