Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish.
I’m excited for my goals this year. I’m not one for resolutions, I like to just work on things at any time during the year, but I do like to set goals for myself when it comes to blogging & books. “This” is primarily my main hobby, and has been for quite some time, and while I love doing it I find it quite easy to get sidetracked so I want to list out a few things I’m hoping to achieve this year!
1. Commenting
Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed at how much I suck at this. I love getting comments and replying to them on my blog as well as I love leaving comments for others and reading replies back, so I don’t know WHY it’s so hard. Well, I do know one of the main reasons: I’m a huge procrastinator. I have a routine when it comes to blogging in the evening, and commenting is usually the last thing on the list. By that time, I’m exhausted from working that day and really just want to curl up with a good book before bed. I know this, so WHY do I continuously do the same thing, over and over? I need to focus on this. I don’t know what’s the point of sharing my thoughts with others and subscribing to so many awesome blogs, if I’m just going to “ignore” the commenting part. Well not totally, I read all comments straight away,and I LOVE all of them. Anyway the moral of the story is… this will be the first thing I change this year. I’ve already started working on clearing up my large tag in both email and feedly called “comment” so I hope to get better at this soon.
2. Read more adult fiction
This will kind of tie into a discussion post I have planned for this week, so I won’t go too into it but really I just want to read more adult fiction. Before blogging, it was primarily all I read… then I started getting into Young Adult, reading only YA, and then getting only YA review books. Which is fine, I LOVE YA and it will probably always be my favorite category but there are a ton of adult fiction books that I have on my TBR and I need to make time for them too!
3. Post more “Lose Time Chatting” & “Tips from an Organizer”
I started my own discussion feature as well as organizational feature in the late summer/early fall, posted a few topics for each and then they fell by the wayside. For no particular reason except that I didn’t keep up with scheduling because other things were more of my focus. I’ve been working on this goal the past week or so and plan to have both of them back and up and in full swing within the next two weeks!
4. Complete all my challenges
I carefully, carefully selected my challenges this year. I haven’t gotten all the posts up yet, because I’m a little wacky and have to create spreadsheets and lists for all of them, but I went over and over the selection for a long time. Like months long time. I want to complete all of them. No, scratch that, I will complete all of them!
5. Read 150 books
I was ecstatic that I passed my goal of 115 books for the year, so I want to beat that. I know I can read 150 books. I really, really slacked off in reading during the fall/early winter and hardly read anything compared to what I usually do so I know this shouldn’t be a struggle for me. I enjoy reading, and if I can step away from Netflix I can surpass this 😛
6. Stop requesting so many review books
I’m not sure what my problem is. Nearly every week, I say NO MORE! And I think that I’m serious. And then this beautiful egalley comes available on Edelweiss/Netgalley and I’m all over it. I don’t need to request that many books. Right now, I have 50 review copies sitting, waiting to be read. That’s enough for the rest of the year. Plus all my own books. I need to stop being so greedy and wanting them all and just read! If I miss one, I can buy the book! Or borrow it from the library!
7. Organize my books/bookshelves
This shouldn’t need an explanation really. I have a ton of books, I need more bookshelves… books are taking over my apartment. My boyfriend and cat need a place to live too, lol! I also want to sell/donate/giveaway some of my books and I need to get organized with that.
8. Attend more author/book events
I love in Toronto, it has amazing author events and book events and I have hardly went to any. I’m incredibly shy at first, and these type of situations make me very nervous but I need to grab the bull by the horns and get out there! Once I do these things, I love them every time so I need to start doing it more!
And that’s all 🙂 I only have eight, and I think they are realistic and fun. I’m excited to work towards them and I hope and plan to achieve every one!
What are you goals for the new year? Link up 🙂
Bah I can relate to commenting more, I’m pretty good with replying to comments but commenting on other blogs is difficult xP
Yay you want to read more adult fiction too 😀 *hi-fives* I mean YA is amazing but I really want to branch out too :3
Good luck Lauren!
I mean well when it comes to commenting, and I have this super advanced system of how I want it down lol but it never works. I’m slowly getting better and for the last week or so I’ve developed a better habit of logging on and commenting so we will see 🙂
Good luck to you Charlotte!! AND YES, adult fiction 🙂 I probably won’t read a lot but I’d like to throw in a few reads every now and then!
Stop requesting books — if only! I cannot control myself either when it comes to this. I had to laugh at your 50 review copies, though, because I have (literally) hundreds. And that’s not even including NG and Edelweiss. I have a problem 🙁
Ohemgee. Hundreds. I don’t even KNOW how you can stand it! Although, I’m going to be like that soon. It’s such a bad bad vicious cycle lol. At least we are all in this together 😛
I need to work on my commenting too. It’s one of my favourite things, but it just keeps falling by the wayside!
I’m with you about the requesting too many review books…. So many books, too little time. I need to be more careful with the number I request.
And let me know of any bookish event you want to go to and I will join you!!! 😀
YES! We will go together 🙂 I’ve been scanning the Chapters website lately but nothing of interest is there. i REALLY wanted the fierce reads tour… but nope… not coming 🙁
I just discovered that you can click on wordpress notifications and view all the comments and reply right in there! Did you know that? I’m finding it way easier to reply to comments now! I used to go into each post, and it was SO time consuming!!!
I think 8 will keep you busy. kelley—the road goes ever ever on
Oh, it sure will 🙂
I definitely need to limit my ARC requests. I need to build a better balance between reading my own books and completing ARC books! I hope you achieve your goals!
Thanks Chrissi! I need that balance too… I’ll figure out a way eventually 😛
I love the organizer posts! Everyone has a different way of doing things, whether it’s using Excel or OneNote or a journal, and I just love seeing how everyone is organized!
I’ve almost decided to give up on review books. Building up the street cred so that I can one day get highly anticipated books early just isn’t worth slogging through the mediocre stuff I’ve gotten thusfar. Plus, it makes reading and blogging feel more like a job.
Thanks Terri, I’m the same way. I could read organizer posts all day, and they are great for picking up your own ideas!
I totally agree about the review books. I’m really second guessing half of the arcs I requested, and that is bad bad bad. I feel like I’m a slave to my Kindle… I’ve only just started to put aside a few in favor of one of my own reads. I think it will be a constant battle though… they always looks SO good on EG/NG 😛
I am so jealous that you live in a big city and have access to author events. I live out in the country, and books aren’t a big deal. Outside of the college bookstore, the only other bookstore is the mandatory Barnes & Noble.
I have gone to a few book events over the years. You don’t have to say anything, and you can be super quiet. After you get one or two under your belt, you will feel right at home. I saved a post about book events. Let me see, if I can find it… Ah! Here it is. 🙂
http://literaryetc.com/2013/11/06/book-signing-tips/
I know exactly what you mean though Pamela! Before I moved to Toronto, I lived in the smallest town EVER in NS and we had to drive at least an hour and a half for a decent bookstore. I’d buy a ton of books just to get me buy until the next trip!
Thanks so much for that post Pamela 🙂 I’m going to bookmark!!
Wow 150 books sounds a lot! Good luck on that, I’m rooting for you LOL
My TTT
Lol, thanks 🙂 I think I’m already not doing great on that part… we will see. It might be a re-think 😛
I also need to chill on the beautiful egalleys from Edelweiss and NetGalley. I can’t help myself. I see them go up and I think “I must have it” Why? Why do you need that Becca? “Because it’s so pretty and shiny and new and I must have it.” Bad! ….and yes, I just had a conversation with myself on your blog because I’m weird like that. Lol. I would love to see some more organization tips from you this year! And I just noticed that you added my blog button in your sidebar. Thank you! You’re the sweetest. 🙂
I love that you had a conversation with yourself 🙂 But in all actuality I know exactly what you mean, I do the same thing and it’s just FAILING ME! I am planning more posts as we speak 🙂 I’ve started several tutorials but they are complex so hopefully by the end of January I’ll have at least one posted! And your welcome 🙂 I didn’t even see that you had one for awhile but then I spotted it while I was stalkign the other day 😛