My commute is 90 minutes each way, and for most of this year I kept buying books and never finishing them, 5 of them still sitting on the shelf with the receipt still in the front cover.
I used to try reading right when I got on, but that’s the most packed part of the ride, everyone standing shoulder to shoulder, and I’d just end up on my phone instead of the book.
What actually changed it was waiting. The first 20 minutes or so are packed, so now I don’t open the book until after the 3rd stop, once people start getting off and seats open up. Told myself the minimum was 2 pages, nothing more, just to make it a habit instead of a project.
Finished my first book in 11 days. Before that I hadn’t finished one in 6 months even though I kept meaning to.
Doesn’t work every single day, some mornings there’s no seat until I’m nearly at my stop and I just skip it. But most days it’s enough for a chapter, sometimes more once I’m actually into it.
Figuring this out mattered more than I expected, since the problem for me was never really finding time, it was trying to read during the wrong 20 minutes.