How to Read Books When You Have ADHD

I’m an avid reader and in spite of my ADHD, I manage to read hundreds of pages a week (if not a day), between books, stuff online, and periodicals.

My tips:

Embrace reading multiple things at once. I’m often in the middle of three or four different books at once. Some I’ll finish immediately and some I’ll let sit for ages.

When returning to a book or long magazine article or something you haven’t finished, don’t be afraid to go back a bit to refresh yourself. I sometimes take notes in my Kindle app to remind myself where I left off. I have an eidetic/photographic memory (yes, yes , I’m aware claims of both are disputed but I’ve been tested many times over the years and have a better than average memory and the ability to recall where things were on a page/details about what I read long after I read it — provided I found the subject matter interesting), so I can often recall where I was once I get my context again, but sometimes it’s helpful to have a note about the context attached to where I left off.

I tend to try to read fiction relatively quickly, either consuming it all at once or over a few successive days. When I’m reading fiction, I try to keep myself to one fiction book at a tile. Whereas with non-fiction, I can often juggle multiple books at once and even leave non-fiction books for months before I finish them.

Audiobooks are amazing. I can read significantly faster than an audiobook, but it requires a lot more concentration. I can’t listen to audiobooks while doing another focus-heavy task (like writing or coding), but I can play a game or build a keyboard or do something else with my hands while listening to an audiobook. That can really help me focus because half my brain is doing something else “mindless” and I can really get sucked into the book.

On that same note, Audm, a service that does professional voice readers for newspaper and magazine content (from sources like The New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Atlantic), is probably my favorite subscription. I subscribe to many of the news sources Audm covers, but I find myself much more able to consume the content aurally. Back in beforetimes, Audm replaced podcasts on my daily commute to work.

I also find having a dedicated reading device like a Kindle or an Onyx Boox device really nice because it gives me one less way to get distracted by a notification on my phone.

I used to frequently send Instapaper articles to my Kindle and I don’t do that anymore, but I do read nearly every book I can on either my Kindle or my larger Onyx Boox Note Air (it’s good for technical papers or legal documents), because it helps me focus more.

Don’t feel compelled to finish. If something isn’t clicking, go to something else. You can come back to it or just say “fuck it.” Reading should be for pleasure, above all. Yes, there are sometimes things we need to read for our jobs, but this whole notion of adults trying to feel compelled to read on a schedule like in high school or college is stupid. Read for pleasure. If something isn’t pleasurable, stop.

Then it told me to continue doing that but write it down when I do, creating a reference of failing attempts at reading a book.

What a strange piece of advice.