Bookish and Personal Resolutions for 2016
Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we make lists of our top ten books (or something else!) based on that week’s prompt. The topics are provided ahead of time and can be found here. Book links bring you to Goodreads or my review.
I’m not a huge fan of celebrating New Years and making resolutions. I like staying up and spending time with friends, but the idea of a new year as a fresh start just doesn’t resonate with me. Maybe I’m just cynical or something, but it’s just how I feel! I’m not knocking it if you put stock in it – believe me! I like the idea of setting goals in January because it gives you a concrete timeline of when to finish them. So with that in mind, here are some things I hope to do or maintain in 2016!
Check back tomorrow to see some reading challenge-related goals!
- Read less… and give myself time to focus on other hobbies /// Not a lot of people have “read less” as a goal for the upcoming year, but I do. I would love to read the same amount because I WANT to read, and because I feel a balance between my other hobbies and reading. I know that if I make the same goal as 2015 (which was 175 books, and I got to 180), I’ll feel the same pressure to read nonstop. I set my goal at 160 this year because it’s very reasonable but still somewhat challenging if I’m able to have other hobbies mixed in. (See under personal resolutions for more on this!)
- Stop messing around with books I’m not 100% interested in /// The lure of ARC tours and blog tours will always call to me, because sometimes I’m just weak. I generally hate the feeling that I HAVE to read a book by a certain time… so why do I keep doing it? I talked about how I enjoy the new-school blog tours that have been coming out, but I really need to make sure I’m committed to the book instead of just working for an ARC I wouldn’t otherwise get.
- Complete all my challenges and focus on my personal projects /// I signed up for lots of challenges as usual, and even made up my own casual challenge for 2016. As usual, I hope to complete them! I also introduced some other personal reading goals and projects, like The Nostalgia Project. I plan to revisit some old favorites and keep that project chugging along.
- Keep up with my general lack of book buying, use the library a lot, and read books on my effing shelves /// I’ve been sooo good about not buying books recently. It’s mostly because of shelf space, but it’s also because of things like the Secret Sister project. I just don’t feel the need to purchase books for a variety of reasons. (Post coming on this soon!) With this in mind, I definitely want to use the library even more. AND READ BOOKS FROM MY SHELVES.
- Focus on other hobbies instead of reading 24/7 /// My reading numbers went up and down throughout the year, but there was one month where I read 24 books. It was a bit much for me! That’s nearly a book a day. I spent a lot of time feeling like I HAD to read instead of genuinely wanting to do it. Blogging has always been fun for me and never really feels like a chore (neither does review-writing!), but the reading part can. I want to binge shows on Netflix and not feel bad about it. Or build a Lego set. I’d love to not feel guilty about watching Friends for the trillionth time in the morning before work instead of finishing my book.
- Get out more and see friends /// Chris and I have a tendency of hibernating, since living with your significant other/best friend can give you someone to hang out with automatically. You don’t even have to leave your apartment to see someone! I do enjoy seeing my friends and getting out more often, but I never do it anymore. I MUST BE SOCIAL.
- Listen to more music and less audiobooks /// I love audiobooks and genuinely enjoy listening to them every day. It’s great while I shower and get ready in the morning, as well as during my morning and evening commutes. It makes the time go by faster and enables me to read more books in general. Without audiobooks, I definitely wouldn’t have read 180 books last year! I definitely want to keep up with audiobooks, but maybe just two or so per month. I need to listen to music and/or podcasts again because I love them.
- Organize my folders on Dropbox to make blogging easier /// I have a crap-ton of folders in my Dropbox where I store graphics for posts, book cover images, and the documents where I edit graphics. It’s organized decently well, but I really need to make more folders and put them together to make my life easier.
- Keep up with my organizational and planning methods /// I’ve been revamping my organizational methods in the past few months and it’s working well so far! I want to keep up with that obviously and make sure it really works for me. Crini’s spreadsheet is literally my favorite organizational tool that I discovered last year, and her 2016 version is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
- Post more discussions and original features… and less reviews /// I like writing reviews and think they’re an important part of my blog, so I won’t change that… but sometimes my Google calendar is so full of them that I don’t feel like I have time for anything else. I usually have 2-3 review posts per week on top of TTTs. I also have some regular features (Bulletins at the end of the month, Inside & Out twice a month, etc.) that eat up post dates. I’m thinking of doing more combined review posts – maybe one post with two or three books in it instead.
I love the one about stop messing around with books not 100% interested in. I get sucked into books like that on NG and EW. I need to be more selective!! I agree I need to focus on more than reading as well. Great list!!!
It’s terrible! So easy to be distracted by everything.
I am all for discussions! I love reading them, too! And I just doing other hobbies other than reading. I feel like all my hobbies are INDOORS too LOL
hahaha same here! I kept saying “time for other hobbies” and I was like, uh, TV watching?
Great goals! I know what you mean about feeling pressure to read instead of doing other things. I haven’t missed watching TV since I’ve been reading more. But if you miss other stuff, then definitely read less. Good luck!
Exactly!
I have the same issue with posting reviews. I used to feel like it didn’t leave me any room for other content and not everyone is interested in reading a review of every book I read. I changed my blog posting process mid-2015 and I can’t even remember the last time I published a review as my sole post for the day. It ends up being more work for me but I like to at least post one other thing along with reviews that’s something everyone may be interested in. I enjoy writing reviews which I why I post them to begin with (I feel like they’re more for me than other people) so I honestly don’t care if someone skips over one to read the other post I put up and it leaves me more freedom to post something about makeup or fashion or something geeky. I’ve been so much happier since I stopped feeling like I was restricted to one post per day.
That’s a really good point! I personally enjoy reading reviews when I see them. I also write reviews for ME, because my memory is TERRIBLe and it really helps to have a record of my thoughts.
Some great resolutions here!
I can also be bad on finishing a book even if I’m not 100% loving it. I try to give a book a 100 or so pages and often I’ll have one thing I’m curious enough about to keep on going, even if I am not enjoying the rest of the book. I need to give myself permission to peek ahead and see how that one thing comes out and not worry about the rest!
Thank you! Yeah 100 pages is usually a good mark for me, unless it’s by a favorite author. I read some books that just start off slower but I still want to keep reading.
“read books on my effings shelves” HAHA love this! but so true! that’s what I’m trying to focus on this year. I think i’m going to do less trading and less buying, unless it’s something I TRULY want, that way I can focus on getting through my TBR shelf. great post! and I’m impressed by your reading goal on GR for last year AND this year! This year I read 88 and was impressed with myself, although now I realize that’s nothing compared to what some other people are reading!
Emily
Hahah I know it’s the biggest issue for most of us!! 88 is definitely a number to be proud of 🙂
I wish I would have organized things when I STARTED my blog because now I have hundreds of photos with random names, and not in folders so I keep having to re-upload and it’s just annoying haha. So organizing is definitely on my list as well! Good luck with your resolutions 🙂
Ugh I know it’s such a pain!!
This is a wonderful list of goals. I totally understand the reading less thing and focusing on hobbies, though I am on the other end of the spectrum. I feel like I need to stop binge-watching so many shows and read a freaking book every now and then. I doubled my reading goal from last year (though it’s still only 50). I’ve recently started giving myself permission to DNF books and, as you said, stop messing with books I’m not 100% interested in, and it is extremely refreshing! Good luck on all the goals you set for yourself this year!
Thank you! I used to binge nonstop in college (and as a result, read zero books). I hope to find a happy medium where I don’t feel like I NEED to be reading 24/7, but I just have time to enjoy all of my hobbies and not have guilt.
Love your resolutions! I can totally agree with some of them for me, and then some are totally flip flopped – I’m trying to switch from listening to music ALL the time to try and do more audiobooks! But I also want to try and complete all my 8 challenges (eep, I’m a crazy person)
Good luck in 2016, Lauren <3
Don’t worry, last year I did 8 challenges too! haha. I loved audiobooks and listened to them NONSTOP so I really need to take a break this year and hopefully only read about half as many as last year.
Good luck with completing all your resolutions this year!
Thank you!
I love resolutions, I love reading other people’s lists. 180 books? My goodness! That’s so impressive. Even 160 is impressive for me, I think I average a solid… 12. Good luck in 2016!
Haha thank you 😀
I’m with you on posting less reviews! That’s something I’ve been actively trying to do (hence me having longer and longer sets of mini-reviews as time goes by), since I don’t want my blog to be necessarily just reviews. I’ve been having fun doing event collabs and fun posts, and I’d like to keep it that way! 😉
Yes exactly! It’s fun to do events and other posts instead of only reviews. I’d like to cut down a lot or feature books in different ways.
I’m usually not a big fan of New Years because it’s just never really mattered to me, like it’s another year, big deal. BUT this year it actually is a completely new start for me! I transferred colleges so I’m starting at a new school in just a few days, I’m moving into a new apartment in a different city than before, I’m studying a new major which I’m very excited about, and I cut off 5 inches of my hair! So it truly is a new year for me and this is the first time I’ve ever been excited about this new year to come!
Ohhhh yay! I hope you have a great year; it sounds wonderful already.
[…] the beginning of the year, there was a TTT for your 2016 resolutions – bookish or otherwise. I always use that topic to explain the reading, blogging, and […]
[…] setting new goals. It’s an easy marker of time and that’s about it. You can find 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 resolutions as […]