Reading More Without Finding More Time
I’ve noticed that the biggest barrier to reading more isn’t a lack of desire—it’s the illusion that you need large, uninterrupted blocks of time. When I first started DigestPress, I kept hearing from people who said they “just don’t have the time” to finish a book, even though they spent thirty minutes scrolling social feeds each morning. The truth is that time isn’t missing; it’s fragmented, and we rarely treat those fragments as reading opportunities.
Turn idle moments into reading time
Think about the small windows that appear throughout a day: the five minutes while your coffee brews, the ten minutes waiting for a meeting to start, the stretch of time on a train or bus. If you keep a lightweight reading source handy, those windows become productive instead of wasted. I’ve found that loading a single article or a chapter onto an e‑ink device the night before makes it frictionless to pull out and read when a gap appears. Unlike a phone, an e‑reader doesn’t tempt you with notifications, so the moment stays focused on the text.
This approach works especially well with DigestPress because each issue arrives as a clean EPUB at a time you choose. You don’t have to decide what to read in the moment; the curation is already done, and the file sits on your Boox, Kindle, Kobo, or reMarkable ready for those idle minutes. If you’re curious about why we chose e‑ink for this, see Why we built DigestPress for e-ink.
Curate ruthlessly to reduce friction
Even with time available, the effort of deciding what to read can eat into the very minutes you’re trying to reclaim. I used to spend ten minutes browsing newsletters or RSS feeds, only to end up reading nothing because the choice felt overwhelming. DigestPress sidesteps that by applying a strict curation pipeline: thousands of candidate articles are scanned, and only a handful that meet a relevance and quality threshold make it into the final issue. The result is a short, distraction‑free digest that you can finish in one sitting.
If you want to see how that pipeline works in practice, take a look at How DigestPress curates your issue. The key takeaway is that less choice often means more reading, because you spend less time deciding and more time absorbing.
Protect your attention, not just your schedule
Finding time is only half the battle; protecting that time from distraction is the other half. I’ve turned off all non‑essential notifications on my reading devices and set a simple rule: when I open the EPUB, I stay in the app until I’ve read the scheduled portion. On a Boox or reMarkable, I can even use the device’s built‑in focus mode to dim the UI further. The goal isn’t to create more time; it’s to make the time you already have count.
When you treat reading as a deliberate, bounded activity rather than a background task, the habit sticks. Over weeks, those ten‑minute chunks add up to whole books without ever requiring you to carve out a new hour in your calendar.
One concrete step to start
Pick a single ten‑minute gap tomorrow—maybe the time after lunch before you return to work. Load one DigestPress issue (or any article you’ve saved) onto your e‑reader tonight. When the gap appears, read straight through without switching apps. Notice how it feels to finish something tangible in a span you’d usually waste. If it works, repeat the habit the next day, and let the small wins accumulate.