So you’ve obviously been in school for a good while now, and if you’ve been attending a public school, or even most private schools, you have experienced the great task of summer reading. Public schools usually start summer reading very early in first or second grade, so you might be used to it.

But if you’re not and you suddenly realize in the midst of your summertime bliss that you have five books to read before the fall, you might need to make some adjustments in your summer planning in order to get all (or most) of those books read. Here’s some tips to help you out:

Tip One: Dedicate Time

I don’t know why schools assume that you’re not busy at all during the summer so they can just assign a few thousand page books, but if you’re like me, you’re probably doing something during the summer.

That doesn’t mean you’re exempt from the summer reading, so you have to do it anyway. If you are busy, practice some discipline and allocate an hour or two everyday to reading the books you were assigned to read. It may seem tedious, but you’ll fly through those books faster than you can say “graduation.”

Tip Two: Make it Fun

If you go to the gym, read while you’re on the treadmill. Or if you’re in the car on a road trip or just in traffic on 285, play some music you like and read then. Music changes everything. Just make sure if you are someone who gets distracted easily, music without lyrics would be better.

Tip Three: Pace Yourself

Please don’t forget, it’s summer. It’s time for you to let loose and relax and have fun and SLEEP. So just because you have summer reading to do doesn’t mean you have to lose your summertime happiness.

These books weren’t written in a day, so they definitely won’t be read in a day. Pace yourself. You have a little more than two months. If you read a book per week, or even a book every two weeks you’ll be fine. Just don’t forget that this is your time, so use it wisely, but have fun.