I Finished 63 Books in 2023
Do you think an ADHD girl can’t finish her hoarded-up books? Well, I still stack them up, either by downloading e-books or binge-shopping some physical books. But now I feel less guilty. Because in 2023, I already proved myself that eventually I would finish my books. As I have committed to read 63 books from cover to cover without leaving them in the middle of my reading! (unless a racist book that I left it DNF)
Those are equal to more than 11,000 pages. And I also gotta be proud to get them done in 5 languages ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Celebrating My Commitment
If you ask me, do I really love reading books? I do, wholeheartedly. But there’s a mysterious thing that constantly lurks me to leave a book in the halfway. Then, I just moved to other books which I think were more interesting.
The thing is when I came back to see those unfinished books, I will find myself guilty and curious AGAIN for what’s inside the books while I already forgot which page was I. Besides that, it is quite unfair to give a premature verdict for a book that I didn’t even bother to finish.
So, I told myself. What if I started to have some commitment to read books from cover to cover? At least, one book per week? No matter how long I will take, I would not move to other books until I finish it.
Did it go well? Bet!
At first, it did really well. In January, I finished 8 books. It felt like, “oh look, I can be so devoted? I’m a truly geek now!”
But yeah, as what I had in the past, the next pattern is quite predictable. I had been less, less, less excited. As you can see on the chart below.
In the middle of the year, I even got zero book to finish.
Well, doing this reading race is like running a marathon. There would be a price when you spent too much energy in your first mile. It wouldn’t sustain. And day by day, it felt like a chore. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
The culprit had been the same. I often zone out in the middle of my reading. Or maybe it’s just the ugly book? Idk, but the feeling is quite generic: I felt so reluctant to complete the books. At last, it became a consecutive serial task, to read it word by word, then page by page, which can’t be wrapped up in a day. But wait, even to start opening the book and continuing the last passage became so hefttyyyyyyy.
Did I give up? I almost did, lol. In the last quarter of this year, I found a life-changing feature that I just realized it exists.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s simply a text-to-speech feature on eBook readers. I know I sound like a granny now, but oh, God. I really love this technology.
This bot-reading feature is well-called as “read aloud” that makes the book as an audiobook. Trust me, I was sooooo skeptical about this. Especially for me, a girl with her short-span attention. I mean, who will stay for hours listening for boring bot reading some passages?
Eventually, I will. Because it’s like a missing puzzle for my ADHD brain. However, if you ask me can i really stay still to listen to the bot? Yeah, in my sleeping manner😏
But seriously, I’m not gonna lie that it’s taxing to do that. I’d be struggling by fidgeting to make myself not dozing off. Nevertheless, the great news is — I can substitute my fidgeting by doing something productive; as in my chores or simply my workload that don’t need any deep attention to finish.
That’s why I found it like a missing puzzle. This read-aloud witchcraft literally fills the gap of my not-much-stimulating tasks that I found it hard to finish. In another word, when my limbs do some automatic jobs, my mind will be pleasantly occupied by listening the bot reading. As if it’s listening to music or podcast, but it’s book.
Therefore, these problems are solving each other:
- I can enjoy the “reading” and reach my reading goal target.
- My chores and boring workloads are rewardingly finished.
At the end, looking at the numbers of books I finished is so mesmerizing. But that’s just a bonus. Because the real winning feeling is when I regain my confidence to be a better version of myself by finishing her personal goal. I don’t care if some people (or the little voice in my head) tell that it just a trivial matter. For me, it’s achieving, and I deserve some celebration here (by writing about it publicly :p).
