Do you set goals like reading a certain number of books in a year? Participate in reading challenges?
I don’t set goals around reading a certain number of books. Those have always seemed arbitrary and not helpful for my reading. I have done reading challenges in the past, though—the yearly Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, the yearly reading challenge from PopSugar, book bingo. I like those types of challenges for helping me to break out of my comfort zone and try new authors and genres! I’ve also made my own challenges. What are some of your favorite reading challenges?
I’ve recently started setting myself goals. I used to read non-stop before university. During my undergraduate degree I slowed down to finishing only a few books per year. By the time I started my PhD, where basically my entire 9-5 is reading and analysing dense 40-page mathematical papers, I’d completely stopped reading for pleasure.
Last year I set myself a 1 book per week goal and found that I was actively factoring reading time into my daily schedule, which I really appreciated. I managed to get through a lot of my reading bucket list this way, but at the end of the year I decided I wouldn’t set that kind of goal again. I ended up powering through some novels that I would’ve preferred to DNF purely because it was Thursday and starting a new novel would set me back.
This year I haven’t set a hard goal. I’ve decided I am happy with one book per month, and if I’m reading properly then I blaze past that. I’m very much enjoying the ability to augment my main reading with other reading. I’m currently participating in a book club over at !lovecraft@ka.tet42.org which I find very rewarding and I wouldn’t have had the spare reading time to participate in this time last year.
I’ve noticed myself completing books I would usually DNF when I’ve participated in more formal reading challenges before. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of finding another book that fit the prompt so I just stuck with them.