This year, I set a soft resolution to read more. I’ve written about my reading habits before, and I can honestly say that not much has changed. I did finish 3 books in 2025, but I wasn’t reading much.

This distinction is important.

You see, I don’t want to read more books; I just want to read more.

Something major happened to my brain after my daughter was born. It got dried up, smoothed out, and overall smashed in the blender of sleepless nights, long days, and the strain of having to make so many decisions.

I actually got stupider.

I don’t remember things as well. It’s hard to activate my critical thinking. Even the other day, Zelphia asked me a pretty simple question about what we should do about some plans that needed to be sorted out, and it felt like I was physically pulling the thoughts out of my brain, and each thought weighed 50 pounds.

This has had side effects at work.

However, I found 1 activity that massages my brain, slaps my thighs, and prepares me for my day ahead.

Reading.

I work a lot with words. It’s my primary job: figuring out where words should go on a page, writing long-form content for complex topics, writing emails, writing protocol that other people can actually understand (still working on that one), and using chat messages to make sure our clients are getting what they paid for, and oftentimes more (not affectionate).

Reading makes me better at my job. So I want to do it more.

I use this app called StoryGraph to track my reading habits. It’s really cool to go back and see what books I’ve read when, and what my thoughts were while reading the book. It’s a great service, and if you read, you should check it out!

Every year, they have an event to set a goal for reading X amount of books. I’ve been setting a yearly goal every year since 2023.

I clearly don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to setting reading goals. Something isn’t working for me, and reading, and I think it has to do with perspective.

When setting a goal to read X amount of books in a year, I miss the point of why. Why is it that I want to read 10 books this year? Is it because I read 9 last year? Is it because there are 10 books on my shelf I’m just dying to read?

The real reason I wanted to read 10 books in 2023 was because. A useless reason to do anything, really.

I think many reading goals miss the point entirely.

I remember when I set the 10-book reading goal in 2023, I chose what book to read next, partially because I was interested in the book, but also because of the length.

That year, I finished A Clash of Kings (a book I started in 2017, then put down), read through A Storm of Swords (that’s like 900 pages), but I also chose to read Of Mice and Men solely due to the length. I thought finishing it would help me get momentum to keep pursuing that goal.

It didn’t. The next book I read was Fahrenheit 451, and for some reason, that book was a total slog. It’s not long, but for me, it wasn’t clicking. I dragged my way through it anyway and then fell out of love with reading.

Looking back at my years of tracked data, the years that I was most fond of reading are the years when reading was built into my life. There were no goals, just a list of books I wanted to read.

2021 was one of those years. I read 15 books that year. It was a mix of classics like Catcher in the Rye and Pride and Prejudice, as well as Christian living books like Gentle and Lowly and Rejoice and Tremble.

I didn’t have a goal for 2021; I was just really interested in reading!

I don’t want to set a goal for how many books I want to read this year. I just want to build the habit of reading more often.

Before this year started, I began the journey of reading Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. It’s a strange book and one that I’m interested in, but not particularly enjoying.

So I started reading Redwall. My childhood copy, to be exact.

And while it may not be as “interesting” or “challenging” or “grown up” as House of Leaves, it’s a book that I’m actually enjoying, and therefore reading more.

I’m all for reading books, watching movies, and engaging with things that are thematically challenging. It’s a good exercise for the brain to figure out what’s working, what’s not, and in some instances, why this writer is completely missing the point.

BUT, when you’re a smooth-brained parent to a 2-year-old toddler with another on the way, you have to take what you can.

Here’s to reading less books in 2026!