90. Building a Reading Habit and Chronic Illness Work Tips (Q&A)

Episode 90

Getting more reading into your life isn’t just about willpower, and working productively with chronic illness isn’t just about “pushing through.” Both require smart strategies that fit your real life.

In this month’s Q&A episode, I answer two listener questions: how to finally build a consistent reading habit, and how to adapt productivity systems when chronic illness is part of the equation. You’ll walk away with practical tools you can use right away—whether your goal is to read more books, or to get work done in a way that honors your health and energy.

If you’ve ever felt stuck with good intentions that never stick, or frustrated that typical productivity advice doesn’t account for chronic conditions, this episode will give you realistic, actionable steps to make progress.

What You Learn:

• Simple ways to build and keep a reading habit (even if you’re busy or distracted)

• How to set up your environment so reading becomes the easy choice

• How to think about productivity when living with chronic illness

• Practical strategies to adjust your systems on low-energy days without losing momentum

🔗 Resources + Episodes Mentioned:

• SchoolHabits University (Parents, go here)

• SchoolHabits University (Students, go here)

• The College Note-Taking Power System (Brand New Program!)

• Episode 47 – How to Really Change a Habit 

• Episode 51 – How to Rest and Still Get Things Done

Never stop learning.

▶  ✏️Get my FREE parent training: How to Help Your Student Handle School Like a Pro — Without Study Frustration, Assignment Overwhelm, or All the Drama (If you’re the parent of a high school or college student, this training is for you.)

• Get the Transcription

  The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them 😉

  Building a Reading Habit and Chronic Illness Work Strategies (Q&A)

  ===

  [00:00:00] Well, hello and welcome to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. This is one of our monthly episodes where I answer questions submitted by listeners. If you are new to the show and you're wondering how to submit your own questions, you can just head to learnandworksmarter.com. Right there on the homepage, there is a link where you can ask me your questions.

  I will add them to the queue. I'll be answering two questions today. One is from a working professional and the other, well, I'm not actually sure because I didn't say, but that's okay. We're gonna be talking about some [00:00:30] topics that are relevant to most of my audience members. So even if these aren't your questions, I encourage you to listen all the way through, because as I always say, sometimes other people ask questions that we didn't even know we had.

  And with that, let's begin.

  [00:01:00] All right, so our first question was submitted by someone asking about a reading habit. I'm gonna read their question. They ask, hi Katie, do you have any strategies for establishing a reading habit? I used to read regularly, but I stopped and now I'm looking to pick it up again. Any tricks? Thank you.

  Thanks for your question. [00:01:30] Um, now I am not sure if this person is a student or a professional, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because the strategies that I'm gonna talk about are pretty much universal. So we establish a reading habit the exact same way we establish any other habit, and there are some foundational principles that make it more likely to be something that you stick with over time, which is the definition of a habit.

  And so what you know, whether you are implementing a reading habit or an [00:02:00] exercise habit, or any kind of habit, really the strategies that I'm about to share can probably help you with anything that you're hoping to do more of, and more of consistently.

  Also, I do have an entire episode dedicated to building habits.

  That is episode 47, and I am strongly directing you to listen to that because that is a deep dive into the foundational principles of habit building. And so I will leave that link in the show notes. [00:02:30] Actually, before I proceed, I had someone not that long ago ask me where the show notes were, and that is a very good question.

  I have a unique webpage for every single podcast episode. You can get everything at Learnandworksmarter.com. There's a search field. You can search for any topic, you can go by category, whatever, but if you wanna go directly to a particular episode, you can go to learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/ the number of the [00:03:00] episode, so this would be 90, and on that webpage, everything that I mentioned, a transcript, all the links that I talk about, everything is right there in one location. If you are watching this on YouTube, that link is in the description box below the video. If you are listening in the Apple Podcast app, all you have to do is just simply scroll up a little bit while you are listening to the episode.

  And the show notes appear, and that's where all the links will be in the Apple Podcast app. You don't even [00:03:30] have to click on anything, at least at the time that I'm recording this. If you're listening in Spotify, I'm, I'm pretty sure it's the same thing. I probably should have done my research before I hit record on this one, but the show notes are inside the podcast apps themselves Anyway, so go listen to episode 47. But then I also have some tips specifically for reading more frequently, which is what you asked about.

  So my first tip is to read books you like. We are always gonna face less resistance on tasks [00:04:00] we enjoy doing. And so if you begin your whole, you know, reading habit journey with some strong intentionality about what you'll be reading, I think you'll probably be more successful.

  So start with that. Start thinking about what kind of books you like to read. Maybe you want to read more classic literature and more challenging books. But my advice is, as you are in the early stages of getting this habit to stick, I suggest reading [00:04:30] books that have the least amount of resistance. In other words, it does take some level of, you know, mental preparation and psyching yourself up to sit down and read Chaucer or a, you know, deeply philosophical book.

  And in the early stages of building a habit, you wanna do everything you possibly can to reduce that resistance. So maybe you eventually get to more dense literature and harder reading. But let's just start with something that has a lighter on ramp, so to speak.

  [00:05:00] Maybe some fiction or a thriller or a New York Times bestseller, something that doesn't require massive amounts of thinking power to get to the story or to the meaning. And there are a bazillion books out there that provide an incredible reading experience and an incredible message with deep themes and, and a storyline that's written in a very accessible language, but that are also not dropping you down to the category of like a cheesy airport novel.

  Not [00:05:30] dissing cheesy airport novels, but you know what I mean. So that's my point. Number one, reduce friction with the kind of book you're reading.

  And then my second point is also about friction, and that is to reduce the amount of friction that you have with the medium of the book itself. So are you going to read it on Kindle?

  Are you gonna get your own copy? Are you gonna get it from the library? Are you gonna listen to the audio book version? These might seem like minor decisions that have absolutely nothing to do with establishing a reading habit, but they are [00:06:00] connected to the friction of the reading experience itself.

  There are some books that I can only read a tangible printed version of. That's because I am marking them up and they're the kind of book that I wanna flip back to certain pages and read them again, or remind myself of what I read. There are also books that I enjoy listening to on audiobook. I do not pay for Audible, but I do pay for the pro version of Spotify, and believe it or not, my daughter recently told me that I can listen to audio books on [00:06:30] Spotify on the pro version, and I am currently listening to two.

  You didn't ask me what I'm reading right now, but I am reading a. One is on Earth. We're briefly gorgeous. The author's first name is Ocean something. Incredible book. And then the second one is the 10th of December, which is a George Saunders book. George Saunders is amazing and it's a collection of short stories, which I think is awesome to listen to on an audio book, at least in my experience.

  Although I do have the printed version of that too, and some of his writing is so incredible that I'm like, no, I need to listen. [00:07:00] I need to read this one in the printed version just so I can see. The sentences 'cause I like to see the words, but then there are also books that are better suited for my Kindle, right?

  There's hardly any resistance on the Kindle 'cause it's lightweight. Mine has a backlight, so I can read in bed and shut off my lamp that's next to my bed and essentially fall asleep with the Kindle in my hand without having the friction of having to lean over and shut my lamp off when I'm done, which like low key wakes me up again.

  Does that sound petty? Perhaps, but that kind of thing matters to me. So what matters to [00:07:30] you is my question, and that's something for you to decide.

  My next strategy has to do with scheduling when you are going to read. So no matter what kind of habit you're trying to build, having a preset time when you're gonna do this habit is directly related to your success.

  Think about if you're trying to take a multivitamin every day as a habit. Okay, well, it's easier to tell yourself, okay, I'll take it every day after breakfast. Or if you're trying to establish a fitness habit, it's much easier to tell yourself, okay, I will go to the gym every [00:08:00] day after work.

  When we tell ourselves in advance, when we're gonna do the thing that we're gonna do, we reduce our decision fatigue. This really matters. If we have to decide when to go for a run or when to take our multivitamin or when to read our book over and over again every single day, we need to make that decision like every single day, we're forcing ourselves to make those decisions time and time after again, and that is when we set ourselves up for procrastination. Think about it. If you don't [00:08:30] prearrange, when you're gonna get your workout in every day, it's easy to wake up in the morning and say, oh, I'll just do it like after breakfast.

  And then after breakfast. It's easy to say, oh, I'll just, I'll go after lunch. And then after lunch, it's easy to say, well, I'll just go tonight. And then tonight rolls around and you're tired and you've actually already made three decisions that day regarding when you're gonna work out. That's decision fatigue, and that leads us to never doing the thing.

  But if you decide once in advance that I am gonna work out every single [00:09:00] day after work, or five days a week, whatever you want, that means that the decision has already been made. In the morning, you don't have to think about when you're gonna do it because you said you're gonna do it after work at lunchtime.

  You don't have to think, am I gonna work out now? Because you know you're gonna do it after work, and then after work rolls around and you go to the gym because you said you would. Right. Building a reading habit is the same. So when are you gonna read your book? What time is generally open? Most days of the week? Be intentional about this because if you [00:09:30] say something like, I'm gonna read every day after lunch, well, midday is typically, you know, when chaos is on full force. I mean, for most people. I personally read every single night, no matter what. Even if it's for two minutes, even if it's for one minute.

  Honest, this is a true story. I have never missed a single night of reading since 2020, with the exception of one night, and that was the night I lost My dad and I have made it a [00:10:00] non-negotiable part of my evening routine. Since 2020, I have only missed one night of reading. I always read in bed. And I mean, I also, you know, read other times and other places, like I will listen to an audiobook on the StairMaster at the gym or when I am folding laundry, right?

  But this is not something that I repetitively choose to do every day because I've said it was a decision I made four or five years ago at this point. And that's that. Now I know that I'm making it [00:10:30] sound easier said than done. Like, just make the decision to do it and you're gonna do it. But like what else is there to it?

  Like literally, isn't that how we do anything, right? You have to get to the doing it part or it doesn't get done. If you wanna establish a reading habit, you're gonna be more successful if you choose the same time of day every day to do it.

  Okay, now the last strategy comes from a concept that comes from the business space, and that is the concept of an MVP or a minimal [00:11:00] viable product. So I want you to determine now as you are initiating this commitment to your daily reading habit... Determine what your MVP is going to be. What is the absolute minimum amount of reading that you can do each day that will satisfy your reading goal?

  Because in the business space, the concept of an MVP has to do with your minimal viable product that you're gonna ship. In business, we don't often wait for the product to be a hundred percent perfect before we send it off into the [00:11:30] world. But what's the absolute basic model it can be before we ship it?

  It has to function. It still has to be considered the product, but thinking of this way helps you ship faster and learn as you go. The only exception to that, of course, is School Habits University and my new college note taking power system course, which is a hundred percent perfect obviously, but in terms of reading, maybe that's, I don't know, five minutes. No matter what, even if you only read five minutes a day, that counts as you are reading for the day. [00:12:00] Maybe your MVP is 10 minutes. I usually read for 30 to 45 minutes a night. But there have been plenty of times where I know that it's either I've got a choice, right, either no reading at all, which is not an option for me, or just one minute of reading.

  So one minute is my minimal viable product. So when I say I have only missed one night of reading since 2020, some of those nights, not a lot, but some of those nights are literally one [00:12:30] minute of reading. I'll share a story that happened so recently. So just two, what weekend is it now? Beginning of September.

  So just two weeks ago, my family and I hiked Mount Washington up in New Hampshire and we hiked up with our backpacks and we spent the night at the lake of the clouds hut right there on the mountain where there is like no reception. Okay. And we're hiking up with these super heavy backpacks and I am not bringing a book.

  I am not even bringing my Kindle. My backpack. Is heavy enough and we do these [00:13:00] hiking trips once a year. So this happened just two weeks ago, but it's something that I've done for the past, I dunno, four or five years. Well, I've been hiking my whole life and bringing my kids, but this thing that I'm gonna share with you, I've done for four or five years in a row in anticipation of not wanting to break my reading streak.

  I opened up my Kindle app on my phone before I even left my house to drive, you know, three hours to the Trailhead, and I screenshot, no joke, 10 pages of the book that I was currently reading. And I've done this for, you know, four or five years. [00:13:30] I knew I wouldn't be able to open the Kindle app on top of the mountain with no reception, but I could definitely open my Photos app without any reception.

  So you bet that night with my headlamp on, I'm reading those 10 pages and I earned my check mark for the day, right? So sometimes that's what you gotta do.

  So the way that you think about your own MVP is you ask yourself, okay, if I'm having a horrible day and I have absolutely no time at all to read, [00:14:00] or if I am not feeling well, or if I'm really tired, what is the least amount of reading that I could pull off?

  Let's say it's two minutes. Awesome. So every time you opt to read for two minutes versus zero minutes, you strengthen your habit because habit building happens when we do the thing, when we don't want to do the thing. It is so easy to do the thing when we want to. Big deal. No trophy. Okay? But the real magic [00:14:30] happens when we feel resistance to doing the thing.

  We hear that voice saying, just skip this one time, it'll be fine. And we ignore that voice and we stick to our plan because the voice that made that plan is the voice worth listening to. So when you do the thing, when you don't wanna do the thing, that's when you get the trophy. That's how you build a habit that sticks.

  So let's say you're choosing to read at nighttime, and anytime there's a night and you really don't wanna read, [00:15:00] that's the most important time to read, even if it's just for two minutes. Okay? Again, I'm gonna remind you to listen to episode 47 for a whole bunch more strategies on building a habit that can most certainly apply to reading more books or any habit at all.

  All right, that wraps up my answer, and I hope you found some of these strategies helpful and honestly, of all of the habits that you could be choosing to build, I think a reading habit is gonna have the most significant ROI on your [00:15:30] life.

  Okay, I think we're ready to move on to our second question. This one was submitted by a working professional. Let me read the question. Hi Katie. I'm dealing with a chronic illness that affects my work. I'm good at my job and I've held the same position for a little over 16 years. During the pandemic, I was able to work from home, which made managing my productivity and my chronic condition a lot easier.

  But now my company is bringing most people back into the office, which makes it really challenging for me when my condition [00:16:00] flares up. Any strategies for working when I'm sick? All right. Thank you so much for submitting this question, and I am so, so sorry that you are dealing with this. Being sick in any capacity is not optimal, but chronic conditions can be even more challenging because it's obviously not like, you know, a little head cold, cold where you can call out for a few days and then get back in the saddle.

  Like you can predict that a head cold's gonna be over in what a [00:16:30] week. Chronic illness. That's different. So obviously I do have to start by saying I'm not a physician and I can't provide any kind of medical advice whatsoever. So if anything I say contradicts anything that you have been advised by your physician, please listen to them over me.

  Okay, that is my disclaimer, but assuming that you are following your physician's advice, I think there's still a lot you can do to maintain your work and the pride you have in it, as well as care for yourself during [00:17:00] flareups, as you say. Now, before I get into the strategies, I wanna direct you to episode 51.

  That is my deep dive into how to still get work done at the same time that you are resting. Now, the context of that episode is around the holidays when there is this natural desire to slow down and focus on other things, but the strategies I talk about in that episode apply to any time throughout the year when you want to or need to take the pace down.

  [00:17:30] Again, that is episode 51, and I will leave that in the show notes. And in the description box.

  Now, apart from listening to that episode, the first piece of advice I want you to consider is speaking with your company and seeing if there's any flexibility with you working from home. Sometimes chronic conditions are reason enough for your company to have to provide you some kind of reasonable accommodation to do your work.

  So I would check with your hr, your human resource department, and share with them as much as you are [00:18:00] comfortable sharing about your condition and asking if they can compromise on some of the work from home regulations that you say they have, you know, recently reinstated. I don't know if they're gonna require some kind of documentation, maybe from your physician or what they'll ask of you, but that is, without question, the first place that I would start.

  Your HR department. You just might qualify for some kind of accommodation under the broad category of disability, but even if it's not that they [00:18:30] still may be willing to meet you halfway, but you have to communicate that to them. Because if you think about it, if you were producing quality work while working from home and your company had absolutely no issues with your performance, then you have generated a few years worth of evidence that your productivity is not environment dependent, meaning that they are going to get the same quality from you whether you are at home or in the office. So that is certainly an [00:19:00] argument that I would lean strongly on. Now, something else to consider is asking if it's possible to work more from home during the periods of your flareups.

  So you are not making the case that you should be allowed to work from home every day indefinitely, but when you're having a particular rough patch, that might be an accommodation that they're able to make until your health stabilizes a little bit. Maybe some approaches to this compromise are related to your specific needs.

  [00:19:30] For example, maybe your chronic illness has you feeling more energized in the morning, but you really can't keep up the energy for a full day. Well, then maybe they allow you to work half days at the office and leave by noon. Maybe even if you get there an hour earlier when your energy levels are higher and then you leave earlier.

  Or it could be revis, uh, vice versa too, but you won't know until you ask. All right. So those are the kind of strategies that involve communicating with your employer and seeing if they can in [00:20:00] some way accommodate you. But then let's move on to some strategies that you can use regardless of your working environment.

  So let's say that your employer won't budge in this, you know, and they are requiring you to be in the office every day. Then poo poo on them. Honestly, humanity first, right? Employee second. But anyways, no one asked me first things first. If you're really unwell and you need to care for yourself and are unable to do your job because of that, then you need to prioritize your health.

  You need, you know that. [00:20:30] I don't think you need me telling you that, right? So if you need to call out because you are really, really unwell, I hope you don't feel any guilt doing that. But let's say there's a day where you're feeling pretty crappy, but it's not worth calling out of work for. What can you do in these situations?

  Well, I'm actually gonna come back to a strategy that I shared with the listener who submitted the last question, which is this concept of an MVP minimal viable product. [00:21:00] On your really bad days, I think it can be helpful to have a plan in place that allows you to complete some level of work that you feel good about, and that won't raise any red flags at the office, but that won't exhaust you or exacerbate your condition.

  Now, of course I'm making all the suggestions without having any idea what your condition is, so please forgive me if my advice doesn't consider the nuances of your condition. I just genuinely don't know what it is that you're suffering [00:21:30] from. But on a really bad day, what is the least amount of work that you could do that would satisfy level one of your job requirements?

  Is it maybe administration work that doesn't drain you as much as you know, other kinds of work, like writing reports or having meetings? Is writing reports that you are, actually accustomed to writing to actually the easier task for you rather than administration work on these rough days?

  I don't know the nature of your work, but [00:22:00] think about all of the tasks that you do. On a week or even on a monthly scale, okay? I literally want you to list these out somewhere on a piece of paper. Everything you do in a week, from meetings, to emails, to phone calls to admin stuff, whatever it is that you do for work, it's hard for me to come up with specific examples, but I do want you to write down everything you do over a week.

  And you know what? Let's even say a month, because chronic conditions sometimes can you need more than a week too. You know what I'm saying? [00:22:30] So let's say for for a month, what is everything that you do over a month in your job? Write it down. Now look at your list. What are three or four items on your list that require the least amount of energy to complete?

  Those are what I would focus on accomplishing on your days when you're not feeling well enough to work, but not ill enough to call out. And honestly, I would really recommend you thinking about these tasks and deciding ahead of time what they're going [00:23:00] to be, rather than asking yourself to do this type of thinking while you're already feeling like junk, right?

  When you're having a flareup or a particularly bad episode, the last thing you wanna do is ask yourself, gee, like, what kind of work do I wanna do today? Just as I advised the listener who submitted the question before you, I advised him to predetermine what is the least amount of reading that he could do in a day that he would consider like legit [00:23:30] of having met his goal.

  And I want you to do that too. But as I said, I want you to do that during a period when you're feeling relatively okay, and that way when you're having a bad day or a bad week, you can look at your three to four tasks that you've identified as sort of less effort for you, and you can choose to do one or two of those and you still feel productive and like you did your job.

  'cause you did. And honestly, I think this is something that you can do without really telling [00:24:00] anybody you're doing it. I mean, if you're technically doing your job, I don't think anybody, your boss, your manager, your colleagues, like, I don't think any of them needs to know. This is just your thing. This is what you do to take care of yourself when you don't have the energy or the wellness to operate at your full capacity.

  And there is no shame in that. You're not sneaking or getting away with anything. It is your wellness plan. And I think anybody listening to this episode, even who does not deal with chronic [00:24:30] illness, should consider something similar. Now some women go through excruciating pain every single month and are still expected to just suck it up and act like everything is normal when it's not.

  And I think this is a reasonable strategy for women to use if they're dealing with physical pain that doesn't technically classify as a chronic illness. All right. Okay.

  Now one more strategy to help you through these difficult episodes. I guess I'll call 'em episodes. I'm sorry if that sounds in [00:25:00] insensitive, but periods of not feeling well, and that is to ensure that in all the other areas of your life, you are taking it easy or getting support or stopping altogether.

  That way, every bit of energy that you do have to give to work can go directly to work. Again, I am not saying to work through pain and illness.

  But I am just trying to answer your question in a way that's helpful. And you did ask for strategies for how to work through these times, and so that's what I'm trying to do, provide you real strategies. Okay. I [00:25:30] just wanna make it clear that I'm absolutely not advising that anybody work through pain and illness.

  But anyway, let's say that you are having a particularly bad flare up one week. Okay, well, that might be the week where you let your laundry pile up, where you get takeout. Or allow yourself to just pick at random snacks for dinner instead of preparing something you know that qualifies as legitimate dinner.

  I'm using air quotes if you can't see this on YouTube. Maybe that's the week you ask a neighborhood kid to come and walk your dog, [00:26:00] even though you're home and could technically walk yourself. Maybe that's the week you don't go to your monthly volunteering commitment. Maybe that's the week you ask your kids to get a ride to and from their practices from another parent.

  Or if you're a student listening to this, maybe that's the week that you don't go to any of your extracurricular activities and your babysitting job. That's the week you focus on just doing your actual job, which is school. So these strategies can also apply to a [00:26:30] student who's dealing with a chronic illness as well.

  But you only have a limited amount of energies anyways, and an even smaller amount of energy if you're dealing with an illness. And so whatever amount of energy is left over after caring for yourself and if you're choosing to put that towards your work, the other areas of your life should feel lighter.

  And maybe this is something that you apply that MVP framework to as well. What is the minimal viable product that you're willing to put up with in your own life [00:27:00] during these periods of sickness? Are you like, no way I'll get takeout for a week because nutrition is really important to me. Okay, well then cook your meals, but maybe you forego any kind of deep cleaning for the week.

  Alright? Or maybe your minimal viable product in your home is just cleaning surfaces. Just like literally surface level wiping, all right? And getting two vegetables a day. Great. Well then let that be the case for however long you need before you feel well again, and you would let everything else [00:27:30] go. Okay.

  Again, I'm really sorry that you're dealing with this. Inside my SchoolHabits University course, I had a student write in this a few months ago with a similar question. She was an older student, so she was also working and managing a family and going back to school and dealing with a chronic illness, and it was challenging for her too.

  So I do know that this is something, um, that a lot of people struggle with. So I feel you and I hear you, and I Remi want to remind you that your first approach should [00:28:00] always be to talk with HR and see if you can get some kind of work accommodation under the general umbrella of disability or something like that.

  And then from there, pull some of the levers that we talked about in your own environment and in your own approach to work.

  Okay. I hope my answers to these questions were helpful, and if these weren't your questions, I hope you were still able to extract some meaning and some strategies from the conversation regardless, and don't forget, you can submit your own questions by filling out the [00:28:30] form at Learn and work smarter.com.

  Thank you for your time. Keep doing the hard work, keep asking the hard questions, and never stop learning.