Michael Deacon offers this tip in today's Telegraph:
"Keep a notepad by your bedside table. Each time you finish reading a book, write down its title, its author, and the date you finished it. Nothing else. Just title, author and date.
[...] It barely even sounds like a tip at all. But the mere presence of the notepad is significant - because it guilt-trips you into reading more. A tiny, anxious part of your brain starts worrying about how you'll feel at the end of the year, when you open the notepad and see how little you've achieved. And so, to avoid this moment of shame, you read and read and read.
I started keeping my notepad on the first of January, and have already finished three novels, two books about politics, and an autobiography. That's certainly more than I would in a normal month. Yet I'm no less busy at work. Fatherhood is no less demanding. The only difference is the arrival of the notepad, peering across at me like a suspicious teacher. Hastily I snatch up another novel, desperate to win the notepad's approval.
Ah, the wonderful power of neurosis."
