Savannah Watson

I am ashamed to admit that in 2023, I didn’t read much… like at all. As a lifelong avid reader, I hated myself for that. My excuse is that I started a new job at the end of 2022 so I was getting the hang of that, but really, I just didn’t dedicate much time to reading last year.

I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions (personal opinion), but I do support goal-setting any time of year. At the start of 2024, I set myself a goal to read at least 24 books in the year; I worked out that if I read two books each month, I’d meet my goal. Starting at the beginning of the year gives me plenty of time to reach my reading goal.

The good news is that I met my goal early! To date (this post being written on June 22nd), I have read 28 books. And as you can see from the picture above, which features 11 books from my TBR list, I’m still planning to read more.

I am very much a goal-oriented person, so I have found that actively setting a reading goal and tracking the books I’ve read goes a long way towards reading more. I’m not so sophisticated that I use a nice reading tracker app (although my coworker suggested I try one called StoryGraph, which I haven’t gotten to yet) or a digital tracker… I have a tally system on my fridge calendar. It’s rudimentary and probably not as fun or cute, but it works for me since I look at that calendar every day (it’s also where I keep track of bills due, appointments, etc.). It helps to see the tallies every day so it doesn’t become an “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” situation.

I have noticed that I have been slacking a bit on reading this month, as I have been far more inspired to write. So, the downtime that I was previously spending on reading, I am now using for writing. The obvious solution would be to block out time to do both… but I suck at limiting myself when it comes to reading. If I get sucked into reading, I’m gone. I also struggle to pull myself away from writing when I’m invested in a scene. So, I should block out the time… but I haven’t. As an attempt to counter this slacking, I have been staying up a bit later than usual to read at least a few pages before bed. Something is better than nothing!

I have also gotten back into reading webcomics. I am a fan of manga, and webcomics are like episodic mangas to me. When I was in college, I used to follow multiple stories on an app called Webtoon. I ended up getting rid of the app a few years ago (I couldn’t tell you why) and just recently reinstalled it. And I have honestly enjoyed catching up on what I missed; I love the art and the stories – there are such incredibly talented people in this world! I don’t know if everyone counts webcomics as reading, but I do; it’s just tough to count it on a tracker since it is ongoing uploaded content and not something that I can easily mark as a ‘completed’ reading.

I’m genuinely happy to be back to reading steadily in 2024! Sometimes it’s tough to make time for the things you enjoy, but I think it is so important to make time for your hobbies. I like to think that reading also makes me a better writer, so if I’m not reading for the enjoyment of it, I could always say I’m reading to improve my skills… loophole 😁

Happy reading, everyone!

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