2022 Is the All About Staying the Course!
Like many people, the last 2 years have been a little rough personally. Last year, my reading plan was to get my reading (and blogging) groove back. Looking back, I would say I had moderate success with that. While I didn’t obtain my GoodReads’ goal for 2021 (which was 150 books and I read about 110), by the end of the year I was reading (and blogging) on a more regular basis.
>> SERIESous Discussion: Getting my Blogging Mojo Back
>> SERIESous Discussion: How I Fell Back in Love With Reading
Gone are the days of creating elaborate spreadsheets to keep track of my various reading challenges. I still maintain excel spreadsheets for tracking my ongoing book series and the books I read for statistical purposes. But I didn’t participate in any reading challenges last year and I found I really enjoyed that freedom of not being bound to read something specific.
In the past, I used to be someone who needed to list those specific titles in order to find success; but the mood reader in me has really come to the forefront in the last year and a half. And with that, I’ve discovered it’s better to listen to her than to ignore her.
For the latter half of 2021, I shifted my focus to integrate reading into my everyday habits and had great success. So that is something I want to continue to do in 2022 and here are some of the ways I plan to do that:
#1 – Continue Bullet Journaling (BuJo)
I started bullet journaling in January 2021 to help me keep track of my certificate coursework (for my job) as well as foster healthy daily habits. While my pages and tracking guides evolved over the year (the fact that you can change things as you go is the beauty of a BuJo if you ask me), keeping track of my daily and weekly habits hadn’t.
The feeling that comes from successfully crossing off something I have accomplished has been a great morale booster for me. It also helps me to identify my weaker areas or things I need to change (like maybe I do something once a week instead of daily).
When it comes to reading, I’ve added tasks like reading at breakfast and reading before bed to my daily task-tracking list. When it comes to blogging, I make sure I log in at least once a week to update my blog or write posts. I’m also thinking about adding a reading hour to my daily routine (perhaps expand my “reading before bed” habit) to help me get through books faster.
#2 – ARC Commitments Now Limited to Street Teams Only
I’ve really declined my ARC commitments over the last few years and this upcoming year is no different.
I’m the member of a few ARC teams for some of my favourite authors. These are my must read authors; books I would be picking up even if I wasn’t on their ARC team. These are books I tend to enjoy and have been looking forward too so I find they contribute positively to my reading experience.
I also find that their deadlines help keep me focused and encourage me to pick up the sooner than later books so I can fulfil my review commitments.
#3 – Binge Read Backlogged Series
While I’m not signing up for a specific reading challenge, I really want to focus on finishing up some long overdue series. In 2021, I rediscovered binge reading series again. So while I may not have been reading the newest releases, I found that I enjoyed series more when I read the books closer together and could still remember what happened in the last book because I just read a few days prior (instead of a year ago).
I have approximately 50 series that were published before 2018 (that’s the year I started keeping track of series I had in the works) that I need to finish and I really want to see that number get smaller by the time 2023 starts.
Going Forward:
I have a lot of trips that were supposed to happen in 2020 get rescheduled to this year, but who knows if they will even happen. If they do or don’t, my biggest focus is on my everyday routines. Now that I no longer work shift work, I’m hoping I can establish better after work routines, with reading and blogging being a part of those new routines.
Do you create a yearly plan or do you just go with the flow?
What are some of your 2022 reading goals?
There is just something so nice about going back and reading authors backlist of books. It’s so nice to just be able to binge books and mood read. I’m so glad you’ve found time and love to read again.
When I first start blogging, binging series was all I used to do. I’d get the whole series from the library and get power through them all. But over the years, I think I got caught up in reading the “latest and greatest” so I have so many unfinished series that are now fully published so it’s been great to revisit those series!
Love this! I used to be so strict with myself with challenges and things and mood reading has totally changed my experience the last couple of years!
I’ve always been a mood reader at heart but have been constrained by my reading challenges or what holds have come in from the library. I think that was why I would find my reading challenges peter out by mid-year. So just going with the flow, picking up genres that work for me at that particular time has been really great for my reading and crossing off titles from my TBR!