Friday, September 6, 2013

The 50 page project

I have recently realized that my hoarding habit when it comes to books is kind of getting out of hand. My mother has pretty much given up on me, she thinks I am beyond help.. While being as proud of me as she is , she is also worried that I may be developing a habit. Of course, I'm not stopping buying books and neither am I going to stop reading;so tonight, I came up with a plan.


This plan is called the 50-Page-Project

The 50 page project is fairly simple (It sounds cool to call something a "project") each day I read exactly 50 pages, no matter how slow or fast paced the book is. That way each week I must finish at 300 pages which is an average of most books. So even the biggest books that I own which are about 1500 pages should take no longer than a month at most. (I am looking at my Murakami)

The idea is to read a said number of pages each day, even on the days when I'm tired, even when the book feels like a task. I give myself a book at the beginning of each week and hopefully keep up with the timeline.

The aim of the 50 page project is two fold, One is to read everyday and the second one is to not forget to realise that there are things outside of a book that I should be doing. Sometimes a good book keeps me occupied through the day and I realise that I missed out on other things like talking to my mum or my cousins or sometimes even talking to myself. It happens with most books, other than slow books where reading 50 pages feels like a humongous task. I had to ask myself, why am I not able to read? Have I given myself too much time with a book that I cannot be thrilled about it anymore? Why does the book not feel right? That's what happened with my Murakami, I read too much before 1Q84 and I was too exhausted to read it. After which I had too many new books in my collection and my Murakami stayed in the back. Right now, the book just sits on my bedside table giving me the look. But my life is too full of books to pick this one up. 

So When I pick up my next book, I will pick it up with a )a vision to finish it soon enough, or b) accept that I cannot and simply not feel guilty that I couldn't. It's the 'I want to read, but don't know why it's not happening is what is making me a little crazy'

P.s: I'm on the verge of placing an order for 2 more books, hence the guilt. 

6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. one called Yagnaseni by Pratibha Ray and another collection of essays by George Orwell! :)

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  2. Yes 50 pages a day is my rule too. But thats because I say its the minimum, upper limit does not exist. I hope you carry on with it, so that you dont break more bookworms rules :)

    Richa

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  3. I think I should implement this rule too!! Good idea :) The last novel that I finished was ' And the mountains echoed' by Khalid Hoessini, almost 2 weeks back....last night I picked up 'Shadow lines', read just one page :(

    Came across your blog via Richa :)

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  4. Hi Maggie,
    Nice blog :)

    Yeah yeah even I suffer from the guilt pangs when I open the Flipkart site to check out the new arrivals and editor's picks and reviews and all that ;-)
    And those yet-to-read books give *that* look ,very true :-)
    I guess I should set the 'pages rule ' too...seems a disciplined idea !
    Cheers !!

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