How much reading time per day to finish a book
The right question is not how much time you have, it is how many pages a day you need to finish the book in the time you want.
The basic math
An average reader does 30 to 40 pages an hour in nonfiction and 40 to 60 in fiction, depending on the writing. Use 40 as the reference and adjust with your own number after a week.
- 200 pages in a month: about 7 pages a day, ten minutes.
- 300 pages in a month: 10 pages a day, fifteen minutes.
- 500 pages in a month: 17 pages a day, twenty-five minutes.
None of those needs an hour. A book a month fits in a lunch break and a quiet night.
Why 15 minutes daily beats 2 hours on Sunday
The weekly block loses on two fronts. You lose the thread between sessions, and the two-hour block is easy to cancel when anything comes up. The daily fifteen has less chance of being cancelled and keeps memory fresh.
Find your real speed
Time ten minutes of normal reading and count the pages. Multiply by six for your hour, or by one and a half for your fifteen minutes. Use your number, not mine. Reading speed varies a lot between people and between books.
What actually drives the deadline
Not speed, consistency. Reading five days a week delivers a 20-page daily average against a goal of 4, if you catch up. Someone who reads daily with a small goal almost always finishes before someone who reads in bursts.
To protect consistency, guard the window. Lergate blocks the feed in that interval and drops you back on the page. See also how to read a book a month.