Over the course of my high school career, I have encountered several pieces of literature that, while I forced myself to get through them, I hated every moment. From Brave New World in English II Honors with the boisterous Bryce Hadley to every senior’s prized possession, Lanahan, thanks to AP Government with Eric Buran, I have endured, clawed, and fought my way through every page.
Thanks to these struggles, I have developed a nearly perfect system—if I may say so myself— for convincing myself to pick up those terrible pages and read, no matter how much I might hate doing so. To start, I have found that setting goals and attaching rewards helps immensely. The goals depend on what I am trying to read: for novels, I might go by chapters, while for textbooks, I count pages. Ultimately, these goals are only there to push to the next one, keeping me going through small success tucked into the seemingly endless pages. Arguably more important than the goals, however, are the rewards. These can vary, sometimes it’s a snack, perhaps a five minute break, or when things are really rough, a nap.
Another strategy, while slightly riskier but efficient nonetheless, is to find a different assignment that you hate even more. That way, your procrastination works for you instead of against you. I suggest using this method only when things are truly dire, as it holds the potential to backfire (although I have never had this happen before).
And of course, you can always elect to force yourself to sit down and not get up until you finish reading, but to me, that approach is simply not sustainable—especially as we have so many more books to get through.