Setting a reading goal and actually sticking to it can be a hard thing to do. Even finding what kind of reading goal or challenge you want to try can be difficult. When I first think of reading goals, I tend to think of cramming as many books into a year as possible. However, there are many forms of reading goals that you can try out. Besides the classic goal of reading so many in a month or year, some reading goal ideas that you could look into are reading different genres, a certain amount each day or week, reading books you already own, or reading more awarded or classic books.
Story Graph is a great resource to find some reading goals and challenges that may interest you, but that you may not have thought about before. They have different categories like genre, geographical, pop culture, literary awards or authors. Click here to explore some of the options!
How to keep track of your goals:
Once you have decided what reading goal you want to challenge yourself to, the next step is finding a way to keep yourself on track and motivated.
Having an accountability partner is a great way to keep on task and get some motivation. Creating some sort of reward system to treat yourself as you reach milestones can both motivate you and keep the challenge from becoming a chore. As for keeping track of how your challenge is going, using an app to log your progress can help keep everything organized. Here are some great apps you can look into using!
Reading List
For anyone who is looking for a simple place to track their progress without all the bells and whistles, Reading List is a great place to start. It doesn’t have the social part of GoodReads and is very straightforward to use. To enter a book, you can manually enter the title, search it, or even scan the barcode to bring it up. It has a simple setting to keep track of when you started and finished reading your books but doesn’t offer all the other stats that some others do for free. You can still add notes and organize your books into groups to keep track of which books are in the challenge versus not.
GoodReads
To join GoodReads you have to create an account, but it gives you access to a lot of resources outside of tracking books. When you first join GoodReads it actually asks you if you want to join a reading challenge/goal. GoodReads also acts as a form of social media which allows you to follow your friends, family, and fellow book lovers. You can create specialized shelves in which you can track which books of the challenge you have read. It also suggests books that you might be interested in and provides other people’s reviews about them.
Bookmory
Bookmory works well as an electronic tracker, and it provides a lot of useful stats for various challenges. It has areas to add your current book and a TBR (to be read) list. It features a calendar that allows you to view what books you have read over the month.
Bookmory also has daily statistics where you can keep track of time, page, percentage, or book goal progress and you can log it very easily in the app. If you want to keep notes on the books you are reading, it has a whole section dedicated to anything you want to remember about these books as well.
Using these tools are just one way to set and stay with a reading goal. Reading goals should be a fun activity that keep you motivated and empowered in your reading. If the challenge or goal you choose turns out to be too much for you, take time to slow down or change what you are aiming for. There is no wrong or right way to choose and follow a reading goal, just find what works for you!