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Do you set reading goals for yourself or participate in reading challenges? (self.literature)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by TimTheEnchanter to c/literature

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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?

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[–] FalseAerobics 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I had gotten out of the habit of reading for pleasure after college because I felt incredibly burned out on it. That had started to bother me because I used to read as one of my main hobbies. I had seen other challenges that people mentioned like reading a book a week or reading 20 self improvement books a year but those challenges either seemed insurmountable to me based on how little I was reading, or I would quickly lose interest in because I felt like I wasn't actually reading for me. So last year I set the goal of reading 1 book. That's it. I did that, and ended up reading a couple others.

This year I set a goal of 5 books and was able to do that by March, but then I ended up with about 9 in flight books and wasn't making much progress with them. I felt like I had them hanging over my head and it was stressing me out, so I'm now working on the goal of finishing them by the end of the month.

Its been really nice to realize that I still do love reading and that I still can finish a book even with all the stuff going on in life, its just a matter of sitting down and reading. I credit a silly goal with helping me remember that.

[–] sin_free_for_00_days@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I finished my English degree decades ago. I remember it took me about 2 years to read a novel after I graduated. I still read a lot, but like magazine articles. I just couldn't commit to a novel. It was a weird time for me because I had always been at some spot in a book since I was a kid. After a couple of years break, I got back into the groove and have been reading consistently since.

[–] FalseAerobics 2 points 1 year ago

That's basically what happened to me. I realized that I was reading all the time, but the concentration required for, and enjoyment of, sitting down and reading a book felt like it had disappeared.

[–] TimTheEnchanter 1 points 1 year ago

Working your way up with achievable and incremental goals is a good strategy.

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