Way back in the day when I was an active participant in BookCrossing, I joined in on their community reading challenge a couple of years in a row. Personal reading goals were up to each individual, and both years I decided to set mine at 60 books (five per month). Partly because I’d set a target, and partly because I was part of a challenge group, I managed to succeed both years.
When I stopped joining the challenges, my books read count decreased dramatically, ranging from around 20 to 40 books per year (apart from the perfect storm of a year when I first bought my Kindle AND commuted by bus an hour or so each way to work and ended up finishing an epic-for-me 66 books!). It’s not because I don’t love reading (far from it!), but because I also love a lot of other things – so when I don’t have a specific goal in mind it’s far too easy for me to get distracted by shiny objects and spend less time with my books.
(In case you’re wondering, I keep track of how many books I’ve read on Goodreads by setting up a virtual shelf for each year’s books completed.)
Anyway… long story short, when I found out that my friend Corinne Rodrigues would be taking over the Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge in 2016, my interest was piqued and I decided to give setting a reading goal for the year a shot once again.
I’m not totally sure how many books I’m actually going to finish this year (I’m currently at 35 with another month to go), but since my modest goal for 2016 is to read 50 books I’ll predict that I’m going to jump in at the “Breaking a Sweat” level (i.e., read 11–15 more books). Here’s my (so far empty) challenge shelf on Goodreads, if you’d like to follow along with my progress.
So, who else is up for setting a personal reading challenge in 2016? I’d love it if you’d join us!
Will you be setting a reading goal for 2016?
Please share!
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