How-To Saturday: How to Set Realistic Reading Goals

Hello everyone! I hope you have had a good week! Welcome back to How-To Saturday, a weekly feature where I give advice on various bookish things. Today I’ll be talking about reading goals, more specifically, reading number goals.

The most common reading goal is the Goodreads Reading Challenge, a read goal that is set every year where you put in the number of books you plan to read that year. This challenge not only tracks the books you read, but it also tracks the amount of time you have left to read them.

My reading challenge on Goodreads for 2020.

So, how do you determine and make smart and attainable goals for yourself? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• The amount of free time you have to read- Most people have jobs or school and blogging and reading is not their primary job. Reading requires a lot of time, because some books can take a long time to read. If you only have fifteen minutes a day to read, you may not be able to get through a lot of books.
• How much emphasis do you put on reading? – A lot of my friends ask me how I manage to read so many books. It’s because I make reading one of my top priorities. I read whenever I have down time so it becomes part of my routine. Since I am able to prioritize reading over a lot of other things, I am able to read more books.
• How long does it take you to read a book? – This is probably the most important thing to think about. If you are slower reader, you won’t be able to get through as many books. If you read fast (like me!) you might find that you can set goals that are very challenging.

Remember that you can always change your goals, either making them larger or smaller. There is nothing wrong with not meeting your goals! Last year I barely managed to read 100 books, and I had to marathon three books in the last two days of 2019.

There is also nothing wrong with not setting goals, and just letting your reading journey happen organically. I like to set goals because it helps me structure things and it gives me a sense of accomplishment when I finish them, but I completely understand not wanting the pressure.

How do you set realistic goals? Do you try to challenge yourself in your goals, or do you set an easy goal? Do you set goals at all? Let me know in the comments!