Have you ever set a reading goal as part of your morning ritual? How did that go? Did you actually read in the morning?

If your reading goal didn’t work out, keep on reading!

I spoke with a friend who said she’d love to do that, however, she follows the advice that suggests you eat the biggest frog in the morning. In other words, complete your toughest task first. Reading hardly seems like a tough task and yet, somehow, we don’t do it as often as we’d like.

Is Reading the Biggest Frog?

Early in the day, reading is a relatively light task. If you set out to read 10-15 pages each morning, it easily seems like the kind of thing you can push to later in the day. After all, it’s only 10-15 pages. Again, hardly a frog in the greater context of your day.

But as the hours pass, our day gets more challenging with meetings, projects, and emails. As a result, reading 10-15 pages becomes an increasingly difficult task. Essentially, it grows into a bigger frog the later in the day it gets. By the end of the day I am too tired to read anything, let alone non-fiction. One page in and my eyes are closed – so much for 10-15 pages!

With that in mind, reading seems to me like the biggest (future) frog that I can eat in the morning. And it’s really small in the morning, only 10-15 pages, so it’s simply a lot easier in the morning for me to read.

Benefits of Reading in the Morning

When you read in the morning, there are benefits that you would not enjoy if you read later in the day.

• You plant new ideas in your brain before the craziness of the day takes over. Often, these ideas have a way of serving you at some point in the coming days.
• The new ideas I read about often mix with older ideas and turn into innovative solutions to problems you encounter day to day. Other times, they mix to produce significant breakthroughs in clarity or ideas.
• Reading is a form of self-care. Giving yourself the gift of 15-20 minutes in the morning is an act of prioritizing yourself before the day takes over. This small act puts you in the driver seat and because you are likely to learn something from that reading, you feel a sense of empowerment early in the day which has an impact on the confidence with which you approach your work day.
• You are making a small daily investment in yourself that will only compound each and every day you prioritize yourself and give yourself this gift of time.

How can you get started? Here are a few ideas…

• Sign up to an interesting newsletter or follow a couple of writers/bloggers writing about topics that align with your current interests and needs.
• Read 10-15 pages from a different book each day. You don’t have to stick with the same book every day.
• Sign up for a paid periodical like The Economist (or whatever you are interested in) and download their app. Their apps have built in daily newsletters (also sent to your email) that provide you with a great start to your reading session. When you find an article summary you like, dig into the entire article.
• Listen to audiobooks while walking and/or running in the morning. This is my favorite 2-for-1 deal in my morning routine! I absolutely love this because listening to books while walking or running gets my creative juices flowing. I often stop to type up ideas in my notes app. Sometimes I even go as far as sitting on a nearby bench and draft up an entire article.

[Updated June 2024] Here’s what I’m reading these days: Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday