Summer Reading & Focus Challenge

 In a class I teach, I have students do "reading labs" in which they read fiction of their choosing and comment on the effect it has on them (any effect, emotional, physical, psychological etc.).

I want to pose myself a summer challenge that is kind of based on those labs.  I can read at bedtime for a few minutes but that is a sleep-aid type of reading.  I want to sit, with a book, during the daytime, and see how long I can read for.  

Problem: It is really hard to read without distractions.

Goal: Get better at focusing on reading.  I'm going to start with ten minutes*, and hope to build up, by the end of my summer (August 13) to sixty to ninety uninterrupted minutes.

And I will blog about my experience! (Among other things)

[*Ten minutes??! Is that all you are starting with?! 

Wait! you say, Aren't you a professor??  

Yes! I reply,  And even I fidget, procrastinate, scroll my ass off when I should be focused.  Welcome to the world of easy digital dopamine hits . . . that leave my life about as enriched as an all candy-floss diet would]

Unacceptable, disqualifying actions: 

Digital: checking email, responding to texts, doom-scrolling, reading my horoscope or social media.   I like a hard copy book partly because it is easier to step away from all the devices. I will use actual books for my challenge.  Bonus: no advertisements!!  No one is trying to sell me something while I am reading.

Physical: getting up to make tea, eating a snack, interacting with the pets (some of this is out of my control--the pets cannot be utterly silenced), using the bathroom, cleaning, doing yoga . . . really anything that is not reading.

Acceptable: 

Taking notes on the book, or on the experience of reading it (no devices for the notetaking--just pen and paper).

Pausing to think about the book.

Setting Matters:

I like to read at cafes, but there are lots of distractions.  I think this experiment will have to take place at home.

I like to read on the couch, with a cushion on my lap to hold the book up so it is closer to my face and I don't have to  hunch my neck over like a dowager.

If I had a hammock, I might read in a hammock.

Maybe I will sit on the floor sometimes. (Note--no moving  to a different setting mid-session)

A gigantic Lazy Boy would be perfect.  I had an immense one when I was an undergrad, and I did all my reading there.  I loved that thing.

What to read?

I'm going to read novels.  For me the exercise is about inhabiting a narrative, its world, and the perspectives it contains.  

It'd be different to read non-fiction items, but still a valid exercise if that is what you would like to do?

It is hard even for me to focus, and I know that ultimately I like to read.  If one were starting with a dislike of reading, this challenge would be hard.  Somewhere in the middle of that continuum is someone who liked reading when their age was in the single digits and is interested in trying to re-cultivate a liking for it.

Feel free to join me in this challenge and write me (I THINK you can add comments using the "comments" thingy below) to let me know how it goes?