How to Build a Quran Reading Habit That Sticks

You have started before. Maybe it was a new year, or the weeks around Ramadan. For a while the reading happened without much thought, and then one busy week broke the chain and you never picked it back up. You are not short of sincerity. The plan had nothing holding it in place.

To build a Quran reading habit, attach it to something you already do every day, make the first step very small, and keep it in the same place. A habit is mostly a matter of what triggers it, so the trigger matters more than your motivation on any given morning.

Give it a trigger, not a time

"I will read in the evening" is vague, and vague plans lose to a tired brain. A trigger is a specific thing that has already happened. Finish it, and the reading comes next:

• After you pour your morning drink.
• After you sit down on the train.
• After you plug in your phone at night.
• After you close your laptop for lunch.

Write it as one sentence: "After ___, I read ___." Fill in both blanks with something concrete. If you cannot picture yourself doing it, the sentence is too loose.

Shrink the first step

The first step of a habit should take less than two minutes. For many people that means one ayah (a single verse). Reading one ayah is easy to start, and starting is where most plans fail. Once you are there, reading a few more is natural.

This is why the goal is the floor and not the ceiling. On a good day you may read a page. On a bad day you read one ayah and you are still on track. The habit is the showing up, and the amount can grow later.

Keep the place the same

Habits attach to places as well as moments. Read in the same chair, on the same stretch of your commute, or on the same side of the bed. Put the Quran where you will see it at the trigger: on the pillow, on the table next to your cup, or on your phone's first home screen. Each step you remove makes the habit a little more likely to happen.

Plan the day it goes wrong

Every habit hits a bad week. Decide in advance what you will do, so that it is not a new decision when you are already worn out:

1. Have a backup trigger, such as the last five minutes before sleep.
2. On a truly hard day, read a single ayah.
3. If you miss a day, do the usual amount the next day. Do not double up.

A missed day tells you something about your schedule. It says nothing about your worth. If one trigger keeps failing, change the trigger, not the person.

إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًۭا

One thing to do today

Write your sentence on a note and put it where you will see it: "After ___, I read one ayah." Then try it once today, even if it is late tonight. Do it again tomorrow before you think about the amount.

If you have questions about how to recite, or about what an ayah means, a qualified teacher or imam is the right person to ask. This article is only about the routine.

Scroll the Quran is an iPhone app that shows the Quran one ayah at a time, in Arabic and English, with a daily ayah goal, a streak and a daily reminder. It is not on the App Store yet, but the goal slider on our home page works today if you want to pick a number.