Read what you love until you love to read

I think that books are the best medium for general media consumption. Reading requires you to actively engage with what you are consuming and channels your fantasy. I don't think books are uniquely good at telling stories, quite the opposite in fact. Since they are interactive, video games can tell stories in a completely different way (A great example for this is The Stanley Parable). But whenever I compare reading with other types of media, I just enjoy it more. When I spend the whole day watching Youtube or playing a video game, it feels like a waste of time. When I spend the whole day reading a book, I enjoy myself immensely.

While reading is more rewarding, it's also more demanding than mindlessly letting a youtube video wash over you. And so, I'm not reading as much as I actually want. And whenever I haven't read something for a long time, I started to use a simple trick to motivate myself to read again.

My favourite series of books are the discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. Even when I'm in a mood where I don't want to read at all, I know that I'll enjoy (re-)reading these novels again and again. So whenever I don't feel like reading, I pick up a discworld novel to overcome the strain and start reading nonetheless.

The idea behind this is to find hacks that make things you find important easy to do. How many people do you know that say "I really should read more," but don't. Yes, reading novels might not be as educational as nonfiction. But if you read what you love, reading becomes easy. And before you know it, you'll read all the nonfiction you procrastinated on.