Wow! January has been flying by in a blur for me. What about you?
We finally celebrated Christmas as a family last weekend on the 5th of January. It was the first time everyone was able to get together.
It seems like there is an order to things, at least for me. I need to get through Christmas celebrations in order to fully turn my attention to planning a new year .
I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions as such. New Year’s resolutions always seem a bit like something that you have to get perfectly, otherwise if you screw up in week one you have to wait a whole year to start over and try again. For that reason I think about it more as New Year’s intentions.
The big intention I have for 2013 is to be a bit more balanced. To spend a bit less time working and a bit more time relaxing. For me relaxing means quilting and embroidering and gardening and maybe a bit of baking here and there. And of course there is pleasure reading. Pleasure reading is very relaxing…almost a luxury.
Though I’ve set intentions for other things (I want to make all my Christmas gifts in 2013, I want to have flowers this summer whether that’s flowers in containers or a flower bed) I didn’t set any goals as such for reading…other than I’d like to do more of it.
I guess maybe I wasn’t sure what goals to set…other than to read more books than I read in 2012. But, I found a lot of inspiration for bookish goal setting in posts on several other blogs and I thought I’d share links to some of those blogs in case you’re like me and drawing a bit of a blank when it comes to actually setting a goal for reading for 2013.
The Broke and the Bookish : Paula’s Top Ten Reading Goals for 2013
Paula at The Broke and the Bookish Blog has some great goals. She wants to pay more attention to the number of pages she reads as opposed to the number of books…which seems like a great idea since a “book” can range from a few pages to several hundred pages. But she also cites some other goals which I found interesting…the goal to read 5 books that have been on her TBR list for over a year and the goal to read 5 books from her shelf before buying more. These are great ideas for reading goals that don’t necessarily have to do with the number of books.
Addicted 2 Novels: Top Ten Reading Goals For 2013
Lena Anne at Addicted 2 Novels has some interesting goals. One of her goals that I really like is the goal to read thirteen books by new authors. That’s a great goal to have. I LOVE finding new favorite authors to buy and hoarde. Of course, I will never find those new authors if I don’t read books by debut authors – or at least new to me authors. Lena also wants to read at least one biography/nonfiction book and wants to read more YA/New Adult. Again…great ideas for bookish goals that don’t necessarily have to do with simply reading “more.”
What Are Your Reading Goals for 2013? | She Reads
Marybeth Whalen from the She Reads Blog offers up some additional reading goals. Marybeth wants to incorporate more audiobooks into her regimen. I love audio books because they allow me to read at times when I can’t necessarily sit and read. This broadens the amount of time I have to read, and for me that’s great. It was great to read about Marybeth adding audiobooks to her goals for 2013. Marybeth also says she wants to read more historical fiction during 2013. Again…more goals that aren’t necessarily just about reading more.
Circling Through This Life: Reading Goals 2013
Tess at Circling Through This Life talks in her post about not just saying she wishes she had more time to read – she actually wants to make more time to read. She and her daughter joined Goodreads so they could track what they read. Tess wants to read more classics in 2013.
Some 2013 Reading Goals | The Biblio Blogazine
The Bibliobrat has a great selection of goals and a great way of summarizing them. She wants to read 5 non-fiction books just to remind her that before there was reality TV, there was reality fiction. She also mentions she wants to read 24 books from the library…what a great goal that is. She also says she wants to make sure that she reads at least 10 books for no other reason than she felt like reading them at the time. She says everyone should read something on a whim and says it’s the literary version of stopping to smell the roses. I couldn’t agree more.
What reading goals do you have this year? Or are you like me? Still back at the starting gate with the goals trying to figure out how to set more goals than just to “read more in 2013?”
I am not big on setting goals but I do want to set more time aside for relaxing and taking care of myself more this year.
I don’t set goals either. I read all the time, whatever catches my eye.
I sort of have the feeling that if I were too goal oriented I’d lose some of the enjoyment factor of reading. Though, that said, some of the challenges that go on around the internet seem kind of fun…and sometimes a unique way of finding something I might not have found otherwise.
I don’t set reading goals. I just read for the pleasure of it, what I like, when I can.
That’s me too…with pleasure reading. I suppose that’s what sets apart pleasure reading from work reading. Pleasure reading I read what I like when I can. With work reading there is always a stack to be read… Though when I find a really good manuscript the work reading begins to feel like pleasure reading. That’s when I know I have something I want to contract.