Hello everyone!! Welcome back to How-To Saturdays, a weekly feature where I give tips and suggestions for various bookish things! Today I will be talking about how to realistically achieve reading goals.
I finished my Goodreads challenge, I’ve read one hundred books this year! The current count at the time of writing this post is 102, but that number is sure to go up. A lot of this was due to quarantine, but even before it started I was about 20 books ahead of my reading schedule. But in 2019, I was scrambling to read one hundred books, finishing the last three on December 31st, barely managing to make the deadline.
Here are some things that I have done this year to complete my challenge:
- Checking out more books from the library- This year (or the beginning months of it) I started going to the library almost weekly, and putting tons of books on hold. This made me a larger quantity of books because there were so many that I wanted and because I had to turn them in, it forced me to read faster as well.
- Prioritizing reading over other things- I have made a concious effort to read more this year, and that meant sacrificing time that could have been used doing other things.
- Blogging and interacting more – Last year, I barely posted at all on my blog and I did not interact with any other bloggers at all! This meant that I didn’t get nearly as many book recommendations as I do now that I’ve actually made an effort to find other blogs. I think that it’s a lot easier to get yourself to read when you see that other people have liked the book.
- Remembering to take breaks to avoid burnout- Even though I’ve read a lot, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had some reading slumps. I had a major slump in mid-March, when quarantine started. I’ve had to remind myself that it is important to take breaks.
- Planning – Even though I don’t always follow them (I’m kind of mood reader), I find that making plans helps me read more.
I hope these tips have been helpful! Remember that it is okay to not meet your goals and take a break from reading!
How have your reading goals been? What do you to meet your goals? Let me know in the comments!
Ruby Reads and Reviews 
[…] Ruby @ Ruby Reads and Reviews has a weekly blog series called How-To Saturday, and in each post she writes ideas and advice on all sorts of topics like hosting a book club, or how to acheive your reading goals! Her blog is overall wonderful, but her how-to posts are definitely my favorites and the ones that I most enjoy reading. […]
These are all wonderful tips Ruby! I haven’t yet reached my reading goal, but I’m more than 20 books ahead, so I’m pretty confident that by the end of the year I’ll be able to reach it 🙂
Thank you!