Reading & Blogging Goals 2014 (Top Ten Tuesday)

January 7, 2014 reading goals 16

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.  This week’s topic is Top Ten Goals for 2014.  I chose to do reading and blog-related goals.

  1. Read 175 books.  That’s also my goal for the 2014 Goodreads Reading Challenge.  (Books I read for my “day job” as a freelance indexer don’t count.) Last year my goal was 140 books and I read 170, so my 2014 goal is challenging but hopefully attainable.
  2. Read 75 books I’ve never read before.  I love to re-read old favorites, but last year I pushed myself to read more new-to-me books and discovered some authors I really enjoy as well as a few new favorites.  I’d like to keep the trend going this year.
  3. Read at least 25 authors I’ve never tried before.  Just looking at my TBR list, there are a fair few: John Green, Melina Marchetta, V. V. Wedding, Susanna Kearsley… I should be able to accomplish this goal in a year.
  4. Read at least 25 books from my TBR pile or list that are not review copies or ARCs.  In other words, stuff that’s already on my TBR pile or list, books that I’ve been wanting to read but just haven’t gotten around to yet. I plan to participate in The Caffeinated Book Reviewer’s Take Control of Your TBR Pile challenge in March, so hopefully that will help!
  5. Listen to at least 12 audiobooks, or an average of one per month.  I like audiobooks while driving, doing housework, etc., but I often forget to listen to them.  
  6. Get my NetGalley feedback ratio up to at least 75%.  Right now, it’s 54.7%, so there’s a lot of margin for improvement!
  7. Blog more consistently.  I improved in this area in 2013, but I’d like to get better.  I’d also like to be scheduled ahead at least 2 or 3 weeks, as well as have 6 or 7 posts I could pull out in an emergency. 
  8. Write reviews sooner.  I have a bad tendency to finish a book, think I’ll write the review tomorrow, and not get around to it for a week or more.  I want to write my reviews sooner — or at least get the first draft down.  It wouldn’t hurt to also find a way to spend less time writing them without losing quality – but that may be impossible.
  9. Move the blog to WordPress.  I meant to do that this year, but didn’t get around to it.  Or rather, I could never find enough time to figure out how to do it, so I’m still on Blogger.  But 2014 is the year.
  10. Find a better balance between blogging and everything else I do and want to do.  I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how to do that.  Blogging and reading blogs seems to take a lot of time, and I find it cuts into time for reading, knitting, and crafting (not to mention exercising and singing.)  I’ve also been wanting to do some writing, if I can carve out the time (and find the courage.)  Balancing my time better will probably be the hardest of my book- and blog-related goals to accomplish.

What are your 2014 goals, reading or otherwise?

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16 Responses to “Reading & Blogging Goals 2014 (Top Ten Tuesday)”

  1. Bea

    Your goals sound doable and reasonable though #10 may be a real challenge. I know it’s one I have trouble with often.

    Good luck!

  2. Lianne

    I love how you’ve broken down your goals for reading this year! It seems #8 is a common goal for this year as well; last year I started falling behind pretty badly with reviews that by the time I got to them, I forgot what my impressions of the novels were (which then I decided to start writing notes into my drafts, lol)

    Great list! Good luck with your resolutions this year =) My TTT

  4. Pamela D

    I want to move to WordPress too! If you could do a post (or shoot me an email) about what you are doing, I would really appreciate it.

  6. Stephanie Shepherd

    Good luck with all your great resolutions! I hope you do work up the courage to do some writing! Balance is also a mantra word for me this year, particularly between work and my personal life. We’ll see how it goes. Week one hasn’t been fantastic but I’ll get there.

  7. kimbacaffeinate

    Wonderful goals, I think I am the only person who has a netgalley rating over 80% Mine is like 98. something..but it’s only because I am horribly anal. Balancing life and blogging is so hard. I love to flit around and visit sites but some days only make it to those who comment on mine. I do ban myself from the computer during set hours…otherwise reading, cleaning, work, dinner would not get done..LOL I will say having a WordPress blog with UBB frees up a lot of time since prepping and indexing are all done automatically. I am trying not to over schedule. Even though I am working on the last week of Jan and first week of February posts, there for a while I was reviewing 6 days a week and that is too much. I am back to doing my WoW posts on Weds, and developing other posts to limit my reviews to no more then 5 a week. Good luck, these are all worthy and obtainable goals.

    • Lark @ The Bookwyrm's Hoard

      You are my blogging inspiration, Kimba. I am always amazed and impressed by what you do, and it inspires me to try more things and work to improve what I’m doing. I think I will either set hours I don’t go online, or use a timer to limit myself so I can get other stuff done too. And when I switch to WordPress, I’m definitely getting that UBB package.