Hello lovelies,
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of goals and such, but I do like to set some yearly expectations for myself. Plus, I do like to write a good list! I’m on my fourth year of bullet journaling, full of lists! This post will be sectioned into three parts, my personal resolutions for the year, last year’s resolutions (with updates), and then my resolutions for 2020. I’d love to know whether you set resolutions for yourself! Let me know in the comments. (2018 Resolutions | 2019 Resolutions)
This is a belated completion of a Top Ten Tuesday challenge, so thanks to Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl for her work!
When it comes to personal life… I’m not a proponent of explicit goals with a pass/fail. They’ve never helped me, and it’s never made me more productive or successful. So instead, I compiled a list of … reminders, which might serve as a better word here, of things to keep in mind throughout 2020 to make the year a better one ? Some of them are favorite quotes, but let me know if these help you!
Breathe
Don’t let the hard days win. Do not yield
You are enough: Be proud, Be kind, Be brave, Be fiercely you
Look for adventure, Never forget the stars, and Remember to dream
- BE A BETTER BOOK BLOGGER. I really wanted to be back to being really active, but Spring 2019 kicked my ass with my last semester of high school. BUT I was hugely successful in the second half of the year! I got involved in the community through Twitter (which I previously hated) with #TheLuminaries, and then was very consistent last fall with blogging! Yay!
- MAYBE A LITTLE REVIEW PRESSURE. I don’t pressure to review every book… but I wanted the pressure to review some. Which was a success! For the Fall!
- TRACK BOOKS THROUGH BULLET JOURNAL. Hugely successful! I tracked every book, every month
- USE GOODREADS MORE. Well… yeah I still didn’t really do this. I haven’t even finished entering all my 2019 reads into it… yikes
- ATTEMPT MORE PHOTOGRAPHY. Again hugely successful for the second half of the year! Turns out… my aesthetic is nature photography! It’s so much easier to stick books in trees than create a huge setup and mess with lighting
- BE MORE ACTIVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. I didn’t get back on bookstagram as much… but I’m huge on Twitter now! Yay! Add me @kateadreamer :)
- MORE TIME FOR BLOG POSTS – AND COMMENT. A bit better than this! I’m in a book bloggers group, so I try to look at their posts and make that community thing happen!
- READ 120 BOOKS THIS YEAR. A success!!
- READ 8 SPECIFIC BOOKS. I literally only read one of those books: A Rebel of the Sands! (My Review)
- PARTICIPATE AND SUCCEED AT ROMANCE-OPOLY. Success!! I succeeded: See my progress here.
1. Be a Consistent Blogger
I’ve learned that a strict schedule has 0 percent motivation for me, so I’m making no illustrious goals here. I just want to stay consistent with my blogging. This doesn’t mean posting x amount of times a week, it just means that there are blog posts happening each month and I don’t go and take a month (or a couple) off. However… I do have a loose goal of two posts per week. But it’s not huge that I fulfill that, as long as it averages out that way.
2. Be a Community Participant
Again, there’s no numerical goal here, but I really like the community I’ve built for myself on Twitter. My group chat and I chat daily, and they’re interactions that I cherish, along with other bookish friends I’ve made on the platform. I want to continue to be an active participant in the community and not just someone on the peripherals.
3. Post Top Ten Tuesday link on Master Linkey
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly blogger meme where each week we answer a new question – like this! But Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl hosts it, and always has a Linkey so that other bloggers can find you! This is always a step I skip accidentally, and something I need to start doing! It’s such a small thing, but it always slips my mind, since I schedule my posts in advance.
4. Post to Bookstagram with Each New Blog Post
This is a really simple thing to do, isn’t it? I already have the photo, I took it for the blog post! But for some reason, the picture never makes its way over to Bookstagram in order to hype up the blog post. That’s not smart marketing, and it’s certainly not smart blogging. Why it’s a step that always gets skipped, I couldn’t say, but I hope that changes ? (Check it out here)
5. Track Books in Bullet Journal
This is something I’ve done really good at, and want to continue to keep up on. In my bullet journal, after each monthly spread, I have a reading tracker that I keep careful tabs on to remain accurate. This, more than Goodreads, is what I go back to look at when I want to examine my reading or remember things that I’ve read recently. It’s the best resource I have, and it’s the one I’m most likely to use.
6. Participate (and win) Romance-opoly
Romance-opoly is a monopoly-inspired romance reading challenge. There are multiple ways to play, where you can roll a dice, go square-by-square around the board, etc. This is the second year that Under the Covers Book Blog and Peace Love Books on BookTube will be hosting the super-fun challenge, and you can find more information on the website, or on my tracker page! I can’t wait to participate (and win!) again!
7. Use Goodreads for the tool that it is
This will be on my resolutions each year until I can get this right! I used to be so active on GR, but I don’t track most of my books on there anymore since I prefer to use my Bullet Journal. But it’s still such a great tool to use! Instead of adding the books that I read in massive batches a handful of times throughout the year, I need to start doing that more often. Maybe instituting an every two-week GR check-in? I’ll look into this.
8. Make Rereads Productive
I’ve slowly noticed that most of my favorite books… aren’t reviewed on my beloved book blog. Weird, right?? Those are always the hardest reviews to write, but even a keyboard smash says more than an absent post. As I go back and reread some of my favorite books, like the Nalini Singh, Kristen Ashley, Ilona Andrews and Penny Reid books, I must write a review to justify the reread. We’ll see where this goes… but I see good things! It’s already book working with the Psy-Changeling series and the Kate Daniels series!
9. Review the Foxhole Court
This was my favorite series that I discovered in 2019, and I’ve reread it five times (in 2019 alone) since April 2019 – and can’t manage to write a single review. It’s absolutely the best series I’ve ever read (for various readings), but can’t make myself … articulate how or why. I talked about the books in some of the posts linked above, if you’re curious ?
10. Read and Review BOTM books in 2020
I have this problem where I get subscription boxes, ga-ga all over them… and then don’t end up reading the book, or waiting forever. Some of my favorite books came from subscription boxes, but often they get tossed aside and to the bottom of the TBR pile. But I’m spending money on this BOTM stuff, so I want to read each of the books in 2020! Since I got two books in February… I know those will get read soon ✨
Other posts you might like…
I hope I can stick to some of these goals and resolutions year-round… we’ll see :) What are some of your 2020 Bookish Resolutions and Goals? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you!
Chat with me!