Tackling the TBR – July & August 2015 [2]

Back in May I created a post declaring my new plan to cut down on the number of books sitting on my Kobo. You can read my full post here but the gist of it was:

• I was reading too many books from the library
• I was buying more books that I was reading

To solve this I came up with 4 Rules for the rest of May and all of June:

1. No putting books on hold at the library
2. No buying books
3. Not picking up freebie books
4. Read at least 1 book from my TBR jar each week

So, was I successful? Here’s how I actually did!

Rule #1: No putting books on hold at the library!

I was actually a lot better at this than I thought! I only “cheated” for three books because I’ve been waiting a really long time for them to come out and if I didn’t put my name on the list when I did, I wouldn’t have been able to read them until late this year, possibly next (yeah, not happening!). Ever other book I wanted, I put on my wishlist for a later date.

In addition to not adding any more holds, I also read 13 of my holds; so I significantly reduced the number of books I’m expecting from the library!

Rule #2: No buying books!

Surprisingly, I didn’t buy ANY books since I created my first post! I was tempted once or twice but couldn’t bring myself to do it! Success!

Rule #3: No picking up freebies!

This rule had mixed results. While I didn’t troll Amazon daily for freebies (a habit I am bitter-sweetly happy to break), I still picked up quite a few! I picked up 9 freebies in total: 3 that I originally had for my Kindle (I primarily read on my Kobo) and 1 for a series I had the previous books for. So I suppose I didn’t really break the fine print of my rule but that’s still 5 more books than I had at the start of this challenge 🙁

Rule #4: Read at least 1 book from my TBR each week!

It became apparent to me a week after my original post that this rule wasn’t going to be fulfilled. It didn’t help that I picked up a Netgalley read that I really couldn’t wait to read (it was worth it for the record) and didn’t get as much reading time as I usually do in a week. However, I did manage to read 2 books from a previously posted series (Pretty Trilogy by M. Leighton), effectively finishing the trilogy. So while 2 books in approximately 6 weeks is short of my goal, I’m just happy I managed to get 2 books in!

So what did I learn?

That I CAN control my impulses! I oddly get a lot of satisfaction adding books to my wishlist–maybe just as much as I do for putting books on hold! I also think I learned that just because it’s free, it doesn’t mean I have to add it to my cart!

In addition, I really like this goal driven feature so I think I’m going to keep it up for the rest of the year! Might be boring for you guys but it works for me 😛

My Game Plan for July & August:

Last time I posted that “In an ideal world, I would read one library book, one purchased book and one freebie/ARC per week.” I’ve kinda changed my tune a bit. I think 1 ARC a week is excessive, especially when there are so many other great books already published that I want to read and they don’t really benefit my blog as much as I like. I seem to be doing more “Fresh Friday” (ie Newly Published Series) Posts than actual series reviews and I want to go back to that. With ARCs, a lot of them are new series and while I love reading them, I just want to be more sensible with them. I now think my ideal world is 2 purchased books a week with 1-2 library books.

So here’s my new game plan:

• Read a total of 6 ARCs (3 per month; I already have 3 I’ve already committed to)
• Read 2 TBR jar items a week (the catch with this one is if I multiple books for the series I pick, I’m going to try and read all of them that week, which means I might not have a chance to pull the 2nd TBR item–might not make sense to ya’ll but it does to me :P)
• Limit number of library books I read to 1 a week by the end of August
• A max total of 10 holds at the library at one time by the end of August (This total includes eBooks and physical copies across the 2 library branches I use. YIKES!)
  • I plan to continue enacting my no additional holds at the library rule from May/June for these two library driven goals!
• Execute my Trilogy Termination Blitz by the end of August (Or at least read the books I plan to review by the end of August)

Here’s hoping I can get it done! I’m feeling pretty good now but these are some lofty goals and I also have my regularly scheduled life that may throw a wrench in my plans 😉 I plan to post an update post at the start of September, complete with my new TBR plan!

Have you had to modify your TBR plans at all?

Are you just starting your summer reading goals?

Any tips?