Mini Reading Retreat

Have you heard of a reading retreat? It’s become popular among book podcasters and book YouTube/Instagram people. The basic gist of it is that you get together with some friends, book a cozy cabin or beach house, load up all the books…and then read. Together. But apart. And then get together for dinner and talk/catch up. Doesn’t that sound like THE DREAM? Sign me right up, please!!!!

Now, I would love to make this actually happen, but for now I don’t have a reading retreat on my calendar. But what I did have was 24 hours completely alone at home. And I decided to have a little mini reading retreat.

Theo took all four kids on their annual backpacking expedition and I opted to stay home :). I usually try to be super productive and tackle some big project or work on school stuff or my classroom when I don’t have all the kids with me. But this time I decided to just ignore ALL the chores and projects and just read and rest.

They all loaded up and left around 2pm, and I wrote a little list for myself. I love the concept of time blocking and it is how I prefer to use my time, but it’s also not really conducive to life with four children, so I don’t use it in my “mom life”. But in my alone time, I frequently time block as a great way to get stuff done. My list looked like this:

30 minutes of chores

1 hour of reading

1 hour run

30 minutes reading

30 minutes sewing

1 hour dinner and chores

1 hour reading

You get the picture. And that is pretty much exactly what I did through the afternoon and evening, and then again in the morning until Theo and the kids got home.

Tips for a Mini Reader Retreat:

• Plan to mostly read, but add in some breaks, too. I went for a run, a morning walk, did some blog work, planned three different sessions to blast through some chores, and listened to a podcast while sewing
• On the other hand, don’t get distracted. Like I said in the past, I always start some big project when everyone is gone. I feel like I can’t sit down and waste this time reading. But when I reframed my thought process to a “reading retreat” I was able to just let myself read. Reading was my big project!
• Order dinner/treat yourself at least once. I ordered DoorDash with a gift card that I had and it felt like such a treat!
• Plan your reading stack. I browsed my bookshelves and found a stack of books that I was excited about reading. I didn’t get to half of them, but it still gave me some good anticipation knowing what books I had on deck!
• I highly recommend minimal screen time. I deleted social media off my phone and never turned on the TV. If I had social media or a good TV show, it would have turned into a “media retreat” instead of a reading retreat!
• Don’t wait for the perfect circumstances to do this. Seriously- I could have waited for the perfect girls weekend to get some reader friends together and book an Airbnb and all that jazz, but it wouldn’t have happened for a few more months, at least. I didn’t spend any money, didn’t have to worry about any logistics, didn’t coordinate this with anyone else, and kept it super low key.
• It doesn’t have to be 24 hours. If I could have it my way, I would have a whole weekend retreat planned. But I had 24 hours, I used those 24 hours! In a similar way, it doesn’t have to be 24 hours- it could just be 6 hours while the kids are at camp or 2 hours while your husband takes them to sports practice. There are a thousand things to do instead, and taking making a reading retreat happen means putting all those things to the side and just doing it.

What do you think? Have you ever done a reading retreat? Would you do a reading retreat? What other tips, tricks or ideas would you add?