5 effective hacks I use to read more books than I ever have

I love to read, but life always gets in the way. For a long time, I was reading far fewer books than I wanted. I realized that the issue wasn't always time; it was that there were things blocking me from reading as much as I'd like to. I figured out a few geeky ways to remove some of these barriers.

I made my old eReader better than a new Kindle

A better reading experience makes reading easier

I've had a Kindle for more than a decade. I'd always been tempted to jailbreak it , but even the slight risk of bricking it put me off. When Amazon announced that my model of Kindle was losing support and that I wouldn't be able to use key features, I finally decided to jailbreak it.

I now wish I'd done so much sooner . My wife has a new Kindle, and my ancient Kindle 4 can do so much more than her device. Using KOReader, I have far more control over the look of my eBooks, so I can make them as clean and easy to read as possible.

The ZenUI plugin for KOReader also removes the distracting menus so that the focus is purely on accessing and reading my books. There are also no Amazon ads or promotions to put up with. It's a far better reading experience, which makes me want to pick up my Kindle and start reading much more.

Self-hosting my eBook library

I can access my books directly from my Kindle

An eReader is of no use if it doesn't have any books on it. With a standard Kindle, you can buy books from the Kindle Store and download them directly to your device, or use Send to Kindle to transfer books you own.

Neither of these options is available to me any longer, now that Amazon no longer supports my device. This left me having to upload books to my Kindle over USB , which wasn't ideal. It became yet another source of friction that was making reading books harder than it needed to be.

That's why I started self-hosting my eBook collection using Calibre-Web . All my eBooks are stored on my mini PC, and I can access them in a web browser through Calibre-Web. More importantly, Calibre-Web can expose my library as an Open Publication Distribution System (OPDS) catalog.

KOReader has a built-in OPDS catalog browser , so I can browse my entire book collection from the Kindle itself. When I find a book I want to read, I can download it straight to the device over Wi-Fi. It means if I finish a book when I'm in bed, I don't have to get up and plug the Kindle into my computer to get another book.

I turned my Kindle into a Pocket replacement

I read articles on my eReader, so I'm not tempted to keep scrolling

One of the biggest reasons that I don't read as much as I'd like to is that I waste far too much time mindlessly scrolling through Reddit or other sites. If I find an interesting article to read, once I've finished it, I end up scrolling through a ton of pointless posts before realizing that I've just wasted another hour of my life.

To try to break this habit, I set up a system similar to the old Pocket read-it-later app. When I find an article that looks interesting, instead of reading it on my phone, I add it to my Wallabag server . Wallabag is a self-hosted app that allows you to save articles and then access them later from other devices.

KOReader supports Wallabag, meaning that I can access any articles I've saved on my Kindle. I can then read the articles I've saved using the eReader, and when I've finished them, there aren't any other posts to distract me. Instead of wasting the next hour doomscrolling, I can just open up my current book and read that instead.

Making books as easy to access as possible

I always have a book to read wherever I am

The problem with smartphones is that they're almost always with you. When you have a free moment, it's all too easy just to pull out your phone and start mindlessly scrolling. This is time that I could be spending reading.

That's why I've tried to make it as easy to start reading as it is to pull out my phone. I have a pile of physical books next to my bed, and books on shelves in almost every room in the house (including the bathroom).

My Kindle also lives by my bed, but my real secret weapon is my XTEINK X3 eReader. This is a tiny, roughly credit-card-sized eReader that is small enough to fit on the back of my iPhone 15 Pro. Even better, the device can act as an NFC tag, so when I want to read, I can scan the X3 with my phone and automatically turn on Do Not Disturb focus for an hour while I'm reading.

I keep this eReader in my pocket wherever I go, so when I have a spare moment, instead of pulling out my phone, I pull out my eReader. The number of books I've been able to read since I got it has skyrocketed. If the lack of front light is an issue, there are other models available .

My phone nags me to get off social media

Less doomscrolling, more reading

This last trick was something that I set up when I realized just how many hours I was wasting on doomscrolling. I didn't want to completely remove apps that can be a useful source of information, but I also didn't want to keep wasting hours of my life.

I used the Shortcuts app to create an automation that calls me out when I doomscroll . Five minutes after I open Reddit, an audible announcement on my phone calls me out for wasting my life with a snarky message generated by AI. The whole process repeats every five minutes, with a new message generated each time.

The verbal abuse is usually enough to shame me into closing Reddit, which is the only way to stop the announcements. At that point, I'll usually pull out my XTEINK X3 and start reading a book instead.

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You don't have to use tech to read

Some of these tricks take advantage of the capabilities of eReaders, but if you prefer physical books, there are plenty of things you can do. If you can find a way to stop spending so much time on your phone, it will give you far more time for reading.