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Do you look at a pile of unread books with a sense of guilt, only to grab your phone and scroll through Instagram or TikTok instead? That guilt is a familiar feeling for anyone who wants to learn but struggles to find the time or focus.
Andrea Bagaglia, a marketer who helps software founders improve their writing, knew this struggle well. He wanted to read, but the constant pull of social media made traditional books feel too slow. That changed when he found Headway. Here is Andrea's honest review of how he went from avoiding books to enjoying daily reading sessions.
And if you want to build a reading habit without the pressure of finishing a massive book, Headway offers 15-minute summaries and bite-sized lessons to help you grow. Start your personal growth journey today with Headway!
Disclosure: This story was created in partnership with Headway. The author is a real Headway user who received a free gift in exchange for sharing their honest experience. Views are their own; individual results vary.
The morning habit swap that worked for me
Many people today hate reading, and I was one of them for a time.
Information is pretty quick, and books sometimes feel out of their time. Too slow for us.
But the reality is that books are the best because they don’t require visualization; they are just passive carriers of knowledge. This implies way fewer limitations.
The point of this article is pretty simple: to present you with a story and a tool. The story will be about reading and the quality of reading and learning you get. Because let’s be real, not all books are the same. (More on this in the next sections.)
The tool is an app, to be precise, the most downloaded app for book summaries: Headway.
Without the app, there would be no story, and without the story, Headway would still be the best microlearning app for me.
📘 Replace passive scrolling with active learning on Headway.
The dopamine loop that killed my reading habit
I loved reading until I was 16 years old. Then I just stopped. The problem wasn’t even the books themselves: I just loved scrolling more. I didn’t see the value in reading, and I didn't want to spend hours reading fiction.
This was also helped by the fact that I read anything like a novel, from cover to cover. As of now, I just think reading should change based on the book. If you are reading nonfiction, it’s just best to read summaries or skim the book.
You don’t need all the stories the author put in just to give you a principle. Going back to the story, I was stuck in a pretty common dopamine loop. I acquired a ton of cool principles along the way, but I didn't seem to remember anything. I felt good, but I didn’t grow mentally as quickly as I wanted.
And trust me, there is nothing worse than feeling like you have all the tools, but you still are too lazy to act. At this point, Headway came in (I was around 18 at this point).
I used this for the first week, and I discovered book summaries, and from there, Headway was my standard. I loved nonfiction, and man, they were so good. There was a ton of stuff I already wanted to read, and having the possibility to get it in like 15 minutes. It felt like magic, and I just loved it.
Then, after that magical week, I promptly uninstalled it altogether.
📘 Break your doom-scrolling habit with 15-minute book summaries from Headway.
The unexpected reason I deleted the app, and why I came back
I went back and tried a ton of other apps. I tried anything you can find, think about, search, ANYTHING in the app store. But nothing worked, and I went back to scrolling.
I hoped I could find something better or different. I did not understand the real problem.
It was me. My dopamine. My compulsive curiosity.
The reason for my leaving Headway was simple: I felt it was working too well.
The gamification just worked on me:
The summaries were fire
The widgets helped me stay on track
I had a long (seven days, but it felt super long for my monkey brain) streak
I even had a curated section (everyone had this, but I felt like a king with mine)
And I even felt proud of my trophies
Combine all of this stuff with having it for free and everywhere (I had it on my phone, iPad, and I used it on the web), and it's even too perfect.
I used it too much, and I got stuck. And to be real, I didn’t even retain the other apps for more than a day. The quality of writing on them was just too low from my point of view.
📘 Experience the gamified learning streaks for yourself on Headway.
One insight a day. That's where it starts.
Headway delivers key ideas from the world's best books — in the time you already have.
Start todayFinding the perfect 20-minute daily reading plan
This period finished around a month ago. When I reinstalled Headway.
In the past year, I worked a lot, and I arrived at a point where my dopamine and scrolling habits were under control.
But I had around 20 to 30 minutes completely unused every single day.
I just felt like wasting time was not the best, and it also made me open to bad habits. So I went back to research some apps to read from, and there it was. Headway.
Remembering all that I listed before was what made me choose it at first. But the fiction book summaries and the testing made me remain in it.
Let me explain:
In the past years, I transitioned from reading mostly nonfiction books to reading mostly fiction.
This helped me a lot in my writing, in my family life, and in my communication in general. On Headway, I found a ton of book summaries I wanted to read (the catalog has more than 2,500 books), and so I started with a book by Ayn Rand.
(I know in a way Ayn Rand is also self-help, but for me it was fiction)
And there I felt back home, with an even improved writing. I went on and on until I found out I could even scroll on it. But really, nothing changed because I had the testing.
The thing I love the most is the "plan". There, you have tons of ready-to-absorb books organized per topic. In between them, there is always some testing. Personally, this helped me a lot to keep going and to retain information, and it also gave me the dopamine I needed to keep going with it until…
📘 Test your knowledge and build a customized reading plan on Headway.
Building a routine based on good software, not willpower
Today, I’m near the 20-year-old mark, and you are probably reading this in a day far away from when it was written. But the reality is that probably today I used Headway or read a book, and all of this was built not on my incredible and non-existent resilience but on good software.
A software used by more than 55 million users worldwide (because it is translated into like four or five languages), a software you can download anywhere, and a software that finally makes reading entertaining. Hope that if you are in a situation like mine, this can help you.
📘 Join 55 million users making reading entertaining again with Headway.
More stories by Headway users
If you enjoyed Andrea's experience, check out how other users are building better habits and join the club:
How 15 Minutes a Day Helped Me Build a Reading Routine
From Scrolling to Learning: A Student's Headway Review
From Non-Reader to Book-a-Week: How Microlearning Cemented My Reading Habit
How I Read More Books in a Year Without the Overwhelm with Headway
A note from the editor: Why Headway helps you read (and remember) more
If you look at your screen time and realize you spend hours scrolling instead of doing things you care about, you are definitely not the only one. Building a reading habit feels overwhelming when you try to force yourself to finish a massive book in one sitting.
The easiest way to start reading again is to fit it into the small gaps in your day. This is how Headway helps millions of users. You don't have to carve out hours of quiet time. You can listen to an audio summary on your commute, read a quick lesson while drinking coffee, and test your knowledge before bed.
Headway gives you the structure and the quick wins you need to keep showing up. Start with just one 15-minute summary today and see how a small change can rebuild your reading habit.
Download Headway and turn your scattered free moments into personal growth!
