On my Instagram, I set a public goal to read 24 books this year. Since I’ve started chronicling my experience of reading a lot more than I used to, this question has come up a lot:

Q: How do you make reading a priority without feeling guilty, because it feels like there’s always something more productive to do?

…and it turns out I have a lot to say about this.

To put this simply: You will probably always feel guilty about spending time reading (or any other leisure activity) until you change the way you think about it.

It all comes down to the story you give it. You can find ways to justify the fact that reading is a luxury (I should not be allowed to enjoy my book while there are dishes in the sink) just as easily as you can find reason to justify that reading is time well-spent.

Look! A convenient list of reasons I consider reading to be time well-spent!

How I personally “justify” time spent reading:

1. It is objectively, indisputably good for my brain — it makes me smarter, it makes me a better writer

2. It’s entertaining — it’s so much fun to enjoy a good story, be taken to a new reality, and stretch my imagination

3. It’s good for my nervous system — in a world of screens, bottomless feeds, and chronic overstimulation, it forces me to put my phone down and give my brain an opportunity to slowwwww down

4. Reading feels like meditation — it keeps my brain from ruminating on the past and being anxious about the future

5. It feels (actually FEELS in my body) like time well-spent and I want to do it — so I’m not going to overthink my way out of that one

The time is being spent anyway

The actual “secret” to my sudden ability to read 4 books in January after not reading pretty much at all — I swapped it with the time I was spending mindlessly on my phone and computer.

When I share to my audience that my screen time is unnecessarily high, the typical response is, “Yeah, me too!”

But then when I exchanged that screen time for reading, and shared that I’m now reading a couple hours every day, the response I get is, “How do you find the time? How do you not fill it with more productive things?”

…you see where I’m going, right?

The time is being spent anyway. And it’s usually in ways we don’t bother questioning because it’s the norm — like TV shows, sports, social media, movies, and music.

How are these activities any different than reading? So it’s okay to be chronically on our phones, but I should feel bad about having the audacity to pick up a book? What?

All these “moral rulings” are completely made up. When I say that you have to change the way you think about it — it’s this. You have to decide that the guilt doesn’t belong to you. There may be activities that trigger guilt within you (sleeping in, having sex, holding a boundary), but it doesn’t mean that guilt has any merit.

Similarly —

Do you feel like you should be doing something productive at all time?

Were you raised in a house where you always had to be on high alert for the sound of the garage opening so you could jump off the couch and start vacuuming? Were you only praised for achievements, and leisure time was frowned upon? Were you called lazy when your parents “caught you doing nothing?”

And now, as an adult, do you feel bad when you’re not actively doing an activity that’s socially accepted to be productive?

I’m not going to take you down a philosophical rabbit hole right now, but remember — productivity is just a means to an end, not the end itself.

Productivity is a tool to get things done, it’s not the whole point of being alive. Having a more productive day doesn’t make you good, just as being less productive doesn’t make you bad. Being busy doesn’t make you a better, more important person, it just makes you busy.

You don’t have to have a spotless home, completed to-do list, and an overflowing bank account to “earn” leisure time. You don’t need to earn it at all.

Bottomline: I know that I am inherently deserving of leisure time

I believe everyone deserves time to do whatever the f*ck they want without the looming pressure of obligation, responsibility, or judgement. Read. Knit. Walk. Stare at the wall. Write. Paint a rock. Whatever your thing is — you deserve time to do it.

Why should we not indulge in hobbies, leisures, or free time? What’s the argument? Because we should be working instead?

We cannot work every second of the day — that’s not how humans operate. We must stop treating ourselves like we’re robots who only exist to perform tasks.

We need to play, rest, be idle. We also need to work, but work isn’t the whole picture. We are not cavemen actively fighting to live another day. We have time to lay around in a hammock with a book if we so choose, and we will not die because of it.

These are just questions to chew on — I don’t have the answer for you. But when I have moments where I’m wondering if I’m living up to or falling behind of some weird societal standard, I’ve learned to start questioning it immediately.