We’re five months in to 2020–how is your TBR Challenge going?

If you’re anything like me, you’re reading in spurts between long stretches of not reading much at all. I’m in the middle of one of those no-reading stretches right now, dealing with family issues and writing deadlines and issues in the world in general. I checked Goodreads to see how long it’s been, and I haven’t read a thing since the end of April. That makes sense because May was A Month.

<sigh>

But I’ve finished 7 out of the 20 TBR books I’ve pledged to read this year, which means I’m only about a book behind schedule, and I’m only two books behind in my overall reading challenge. That’s easy enough to catch up on when things slow down again…if they ever do 😉

courtesy of Jbuatti via Wikimedia Commons

courtesy of Jbuatti via Wikimedia Commons

We’re a few days in to 2020 and I’m in the process of getting organized in writing, reading, and around the house. I started a modified bullet journal, which for me mostly means all my To Do lists and calendars and appointments are in one place. I’m working out my writing/release schedule for this year, trying to wrap my brain around a smaller per week word count in an effort reduce my fatigue level this year. And I think I’ve settled on my TBR Challenge conditions for this year:

1. How many books from your TBR pile will you read?  I’ve decided on an overall goal of 30 books for my Goodreads challenge, and 20 of those must be from my TBR list. It doesn’t seem like a lot–especially when I was regularly reading over 50 books a year a few years ago–but it’s more than I read in 2019, and I always have the option to change it later.

2. How long have your books been waiting?  Everything pre-2020 is fair game this year, which I think is fair given that the purpose of this challenge is to read books I’ve already acquired 🙂  I also want to pay special attention to the 6 books that I somehow ended up with on various apps that I’d forgotten I even had. They’ve been sitting there for several years and it’s high time those books get read, too.

3. How will you hold yourself accountable? Like years past, I’ll post here once a month to share my progress and see how you all are doing. I found that creating a Goodreads shelf and the dedicated page on this website to be enormously helpful, too, so I’ll do both again. I’m a very visual person and being able to see the collection of books that I’ve read gives me a nice sense of accomplishment, which makes me want to read more TBR books.

4. What about adding more books to the pile? Like previous years, I’m going to keep track of how many books I purchase with another Goodreads shelf. I’ve found it really helpful to have an exact number readily available that I can compare to how many books I’ve read. By the end of the year, I’d like to have read more books than I bought.

So that’s my set up for this year. What plans do you all have? Anybody feeling really ambitious? Cautiously optimistic? Reading to comfort yourself through hard times? Let me know!

It’s the last day of 2019, fellow readers! Did you complete your TBR Challenge?

I am one book away from making my revised goal this year, so you can guess what I’ll be doing for the rest of the day 😉  Bo has been cheering me on, too…as long as I can hold my book or ereader with one hand and pet him with the other!

Happy holidays, and happy reading!

UPDATE: I made it! I didn’t get to spend the day reading, but ended up completing the challenge with a novella that I’d purchased nine years ago, which I thought was fitting.

I read 14 TBR books (meeting my revised goal) and 36 books over all (meeting my Goodreads Challenge goal). I also purchased 37 books in 2019, so I came out nearly even in intake vs outgoing. This is the first year that’s happened since I started keeping track 🙂