Inspired by my recent organizational acquisitions (and posts by Hannah), I wanted to share some information about how I keep myself organized – primarily for blogging and reading, but also a little about my personal organization, too.
Part Five: Organizing My Goodreads Shelves
There have been an influx of Goodreads-related posts online lately (Brittany’s post and Bekka’s post for starters!) plus Hannah’s tried-and-true guide that I think everyone has read. Feeling inspired by these posts, I decided to include how I personally use Goodreads to keep organized. I’ve come a longggg way since I first started using the site in 2010. Hopefully some of these methods help you out too!
Time for a Change
When I first started using Goodreads heavily when blogging, I noticed everyone had fun shelves that they were using to remember certain things about books. They also had them split up by genre, for easy access to certain kinds of books. I think mine was super general, including just read, to-read, and currently-reading. I decided to at least add in genres so that I could keep track of what I was in the mood to read. This was a REALLY LONG PROCESS. I added all of the books I read and all of the books on my TBR to these genre shelves. I also added a few more to keep track of things further.
Step One: Genres, Formats, and More
I added the shelves you see on the side (thank god for old screenshots from when my Goodreads looked like this). Shelves for the following:
- Genres, including target audience
- Formats, like audiobooks or compilations
- Favorites, one for series and one for standalones
- ARCs from the publisher
- Summery books
This worked for a little while, but I hated having to split certain things. I didn’t read a lot of Adult fiction, so why split it into multiple? I consolidated those shelves into one “Adult” category instead. I also combined my “Favorite” shelves into one. I also wanted to split out the “From Publisher” shelf into something different. If I win ARCs from other bloggers, I didn’t want to keep them on that shelf. I decided to just go with more general “ARC Physical” or “ARC Kindle” so I knew where I got them from or had them located.
Step Two: Further Separating and More Shelves
I won’t bore you with the many other changes I made to my shelves before landing on my current system. After getting tired of sifting through my entire “read” shelf on Goodreads for Top Ten Tuesdays, I decided I needed to make some more fun shelves. Once I finish a book, I can add it to the bonus shelves that help when making lists or recommendations. This is definitely one of the best things I’ve done on Goodreads, even though it was so tedious to go back through all of the books. Now, in case you’re interested, check out my shelves here:
Some of the fun categories for books:
- Baa black sheep – books that everyone else loved and I didn’t
- Bantery greatness – my favorite element of a romance
- Book boyfriend – got to keep all my boys somewhere 😉
- Cool story style – books with unique forms of storytelling or formats
- Couldn’t put down – just could not stop reading
- Family feels – I looove when there are strong family vibes!
- Feminism HYFR – any books I find with some great feminist themes
- Friendship goals – for friend-shipping instead of romance 😉
- Holy shit ending – self-explanatory right?
- Jaw dropped – when a book manages to surprise me!
- Just kiss already – c’mon OTP you know you want to
- Killed by feels – could be romancey, family, friends, etc.
- Laughed out loud – for books where I literally LOL
- MC be my friend – sometimes you just need the MC to be your BFF
- Perfect quotes – for future reference!
- Pleasant surprise – books I was unsure about but really impressed me
- Punchable character – not necessarily the MC, but any character that pissed me off!
- Road trippin – I love when a road trip or journey is involved
- Saw that coming – I’ve gotten too good at predicting twists…
- Ship so hard – DUH
- Something in my eye – I don’t cry during books often, but when I do…
- Steamy times – usually NA books make it on this shelf!
- Travel international – for when the characters head overseas
- Twists and turns – not the same as the “jaw dropped” shelf, because this book is just twisty!
- Underrated – books that need more love
All of these categories have made my life SO much easier with Top Ten Tuesday posts or other recommendation lists. I love having an easy way of referencing certain types of books. I wish I could think of more categories to add, but these sum up the books I read!
Step Three: Eliminating and Moving Books
This is something I’m still working on. I have a tendency of adding books too often and then having to sift through all of my to-read shelf to find something good to read. I made a “consideration” shelf to help separate the books I’m positive I’ll read, from the books I’m still unsure of. Sometimes I just want more reviews, or maybe I own the book from years ago but don’t know if I’ll ever get to it. I plan to sift through my to-read shelf every six months and move books over to the consideration shelf. I hope to also start deleting books entirely.
Wow. I am so impressed with your system. Mine is a lot less complicated, but I see how your additional categorization would be helpful for TTT. Maybe someday I’ll add to my system, but for now it’s working well enough.
I use Read, To-Be-Read, Currently-Reading, Didn-t-Finish for me. Then I have Kids-Books-Read, Kids-Books-Want-To-Read, and Kids-Books-Age-6 for Christopher (age 6 is for books he’s not quite old enough for yet, but that I don’t want to forget about).
Oh that’s helpful though! Keep it up as long as it works 😉
I redid my Goodreads shelves last year (I think) based on the stuff I like to know about the books I read, but I still think it’s pretty basic overall. I just keep track of the year I read a book, the age group and a few special categories! What I LOVE, however, are my exclusive shelves, because I’ve separated them into read, to read (stuff I own or bought), my Flights of Fantasy TBR, my review shelf (ARCs I got), stuff I’m considering and stuff on my wishlist. It definitely makes it easier to keep track of what I have, don’t have and what I need to read next!
I should do better with exclusive shelves too! I have a few that definitely help, but it would be nice to break it down even more.
I need to take a day, or two, or three… okay… maybe a week, and completely reorganize my Goodreads shelves.
I’ve been using it for years – way before I started blogging – and it’s just a mess. There are way too many shelves, half of which I don’t even use. I also need to clear out a lot of the books that I added that I know I’m not going to read. It’s so daunting to log in and see just how many books are in my “to read” shelf. 🙁
I’ve been an active user of Goodreads even before I blog, but up until this point, my shelves are still pretty general XD It’s just easier to look at and it’s also easier to find a certain book for me. And yeah, I do have problem with my want-to-read shelf. It’s just so easy to add a book to that shelf and I keep adding them. The last time I checked, I didn’t even know what 80% of them is all about. I really need to update my shelves! 😀
So many categories! Awesome! My shelves are still pretty basic. In addition to the regular Goodreads shelves, I have shelves for: DNF, ARCs, retellings, five star. one star, ultimate favorites, and books that made me cry. That’s about all the organization I can handle. Ha. Great post!
Waa you’re super organised with your GR! I used to have heaps of shelves but it didn’t really work for me, personally, because I had books that spanned across so many different shelves! I deleted the shelves, and now just have the generic read, currently reading and to read shelves 🙂 Interesting post – loved seeing how you use GR! 🙂
I take sporadic bursts of inspiration to go through my entire post history on my blog, or my entire Goodreads, and make organisational changes, but it requires SO MUCH time! I tend to feel bad about how much time it takes (especially when my room could do with being organised at the minute lol), but it also makes me feel super peaceful when it’s done! R xx
I love getting a glimpse at other blogger’s goodreads shelves. Thanks for sharing! I am in the process of better organizing my shelves and creating more. I also want to do a purge at some time and delete those to read books I have lost interest in, etc…
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So I am currently drowing with my disorganized shelves on GR, do you mind if I borrow your Genre-Shelving system because IT IS PURE GENIUS
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