5 Ways Book Nerds Can Make Up for Lost Reading Time After Daylight Savings

Many people rejoice when daylight saving time rolls around, thinking about all the fun they’ll have with the extra sunshine at the end of the day—Barbecues! Outdoor happy hours! Finishing those tax returns! While I’m vaguely pleased the clock on my car’s dashboard will finally display the correct time again, I’m always a little crabby about the hours of reading I’ll lose—that one hour when the clocks spring forward, plus all the new hours you’re supposed to be spending outside, instead of curled up on the couch with a book. Like any good book nerd, I have a few methods to maintain my precious reading hours after the clocks fall back.
1. Propose a spring road trip to your significant other.
First, pick somewhere good and far away, like Alaska. (If you’re in Alaska, try Florida.) Next, in the weeks leading up to your departure, offer to drive whenever you and your significant other are in the car together. Now, drive erratically. (That’s not to say dangerously. Just pause, dazedly, after the light turns green. Sit too long at stop signs/) Say things like, “I really can’t tell if the light is green or not anymore. Doesn’t it look kind of turquoise to you?” Finally, pack a bunch of books to read on your road trip. When your significant other says, “Honey, why don’t I just drive the whole way?” smile and agree. Voilá—uninterrupted car reading time!
2. Encourage your child to step up her soccer game.
What’s better than soccer practice once a week? Soccer practice five times a week! It’ll give you multiple afternoons a week away from home, camped out at various far-flung fields, where it will be impossible for you to work, do chores, make dinner, or really do anything else besides read (and watch soccer)! Your hands are tied. Whatever you do, don’t volunteer to help coach, and don’t befriend the other parents. You’re not at soccer practice to chat. You’re there to read. Sit on a far-off hill somewhere like a hermit.
3. Go to spring training, with plenty of books.
Baseball is my favorite sport for many reasons—one of which is the long, leisurely innings that allow you to plow through a novel even while staying basically aware of what’s going on in the game. You can read whenever the catcher confers with the pitcher, whenever a new pitcher warms up, during the seventh inning stretch, during pitchouts, and more. No baseball fan worth her salt would bring a book to the playoffs, but in spring training, the players are rusty, and you don’t need to be that attentive.
4. Take up “gardening.”
Spring brings the return of back-breaking labor inside and out of the house. The yard needs sprucing up and all the dusty corners of your house will demand spring cleaning, but not necessarily by you. Assure your significant other you’re pulling your household weight by starting a garden. Plant some seeds, grab a lawn chair, and read aloud to the seedlings as they emerge. Plants grow better that way.
5. Stop watching TV, especially the news.
Is there ever a better time to stop watching TV than during an election year? I feel more springlike already when I think about ignoring all the candidates crabbing at each other between now and November. What obnoxious phrase will that one guy say next? Who cares! While your family is entranced by whatever bread and circuses the politicians are serving up this week, sneak off with your book!