Tag: monthly goals

Posted in monthly goals

January Goals

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

You’ve already heard my goals for the year at large. But now I’m going to focus on my January goals.

Read 10 books in January

I’ve been having pretty bad migraines so not sure if I’m going to get this one done but I’m going to try it will keep me on track to read 125 for the year.

Keep Posting Regularly

I’ve been doing well with this so far, so I hoping I can keep it up.

Work on things for my readathon

Start planning for the Chopped Readathon I’m hosting in February. I need to start dropping clues and decide on the prompts with my co-host. Then at the end of the month I’ll put up sign ups.

Spend January planning out my readathons for the year.

I know I want to do plenty of readathons this year but I want to get a handle on when they are so I can get a handle on how busy each month will be. I think this will help me plan what I’m reading for the year and see if I need to order any books in advance.

Organize and clean out the categories on my blog

I’ve haven’t really updated some of the categories and tags in awhile so I want to get the blog better organized. Some of the tags don’t apply anymore, same with some of the categories and there are some tags and categories that I need to add, so it’s mostly a clean up job but I really just didn’t feel like tackling it last year, this year I’m going to take it in small pieces.

So what are your January goals? Have anything in mind for this month you’ve been putting off? The last two items are ones I’ve really needed to do for awhile but just haven’t had the mental space for.

Posted in Discussion, Feature

New Year Goals For the Year

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

What are your goals for the New Year, are you shooting high are you keeping to your same goals from last year, or are you reducing what you are doing to relax some? I have to say I’m shooting a bit higher for the coming year. Maybe because I see the blog as sort of a business and I want to start reading more material to work with.

1) Starting with the number of books I want to read in the New Year I’m shooting higher this coming year. I managed to read 100 this year so I’m shooting for 125 this coming year with a stretch of 150.

2) I want to make sure I take part in readathons, they encourage me to read and allow me to read outside of what I would normally read. I know so far I’m taking part in two, Pondathon Part 2, and Finshathon both are going all year long but I know I will find month long Readathons to take part in throughout the year, for example there are several from this year that have promised to have second parts in 2022 that I’m excited about.

3) Posting regularly, In the new year I’d like to post 5-6 days a week, I want to get more people visiting the site, I want to get my numbers up, and this so far is how I have see that you can do it. So expect to see plenty of me on the site, and me being annoying as I argue with myself to keep consistent. Summer is going to be a problem I already know it. I should write posts for June and July now.

4) Engage on social media more. I think I’m starting to do this, I’m hosting a readathon in February. Chopped Readathon for anyone who wants to know we still need another organizer, and we have a prize. Also, I’m going to try to do better at blog hopping and commenting on other blogs.

What do your goals look like for the next year? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter!

Posted in Bookmas, monthly goals, Wrapup

Takeaway: December Goals ?

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

So how did I do goal wise for December? What was the takeaway? Did I learn anything new I can apply in the new year? Let’s take a look and see.

Try to finish 100 books

I turned into a book goblin and read 13 book so far in December so that’s only two for the last week, which is totally doable. I might even get in more than 100 so that a nice bonus.

Post Regularly

I’ve been posting almost ever day every day except for a few days around Christmas I took off to spend with my family. I think one takeaway from this month is posting regularly, as in everyday really pushes my blog numbers to where I want them to be. That’s going to take stamina to maintain but I think it will be worth it in term of followers and hopefully ARC opportunities over the next year.

Work on my readathons

My own readathon kind of fell through due to me having to be on some strong medicine in early December, but I’ve almost completed the Reindeer Readathon I’ve only got two prompts lefts.

Start making plans for the new year

So I’ve spent December about what readathons I want to do next year, the first one is going to be Pondathon 2, a year long readthon where you can add items to your garden it’s very cute and sweet and you can find more information here.

I know I’ll be doing lots of follow ups to readthons I did in the fall that promised to have second parts in the spring such as Orillium. Now as for number of books I’m going to try for, I think I can do 125 I did 100 this year and that was with 3ish months cut out for recovery for a broken ankle. I think back at semi full strength all year long I can read the required number of books it would take to do 125.

Of course the eventual goal is to be reading 200 a year but I figure you do that incrementally, so I’ll do 150 next year and so on. Any super readers out there with tips on reading more per month?

I’ve also done Bookmas pretty well and enjoyed it. So I’d say December was pretty successful.

Posted in Monthly Reads

Reflection: November Reads

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

November was an incredibly successful month. In doing a reflection, I read 16 books last month. This is personal record for me in terms of books read per month. I’m heading in the right direction for hitting 100 books this year. I’ll highlight some of my favorite books below with a short description for each.

This was a great book about a girl in an unsafe situation trying to find her escape through makeup. Wren is a smart protagonist who slowly learns to trust and solve problems by opening herself up to other.

Amazon: Violets are Blue

Luminous by [Mara Rutherford]

This was lush fantasy about a girl with unique magic powers, it was always relaxing to sit in this fantasy world with a girl filled with light, magic tapestries and a very well written villain.

Amazon: Luminous

Vespertine by [Margaret Rogerson]

Vespertine was one of my favorite reads of the month. Artemisia would rather just spend her life in quiet reflection at her nunnery as a Grey Sister. Unfortunately when her home is attacked she must team up with a ancient spirit to solve a dangerous mystery.

Amazon: Vespertine

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by [Anne Ursu]

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy is a great book about men controlling women’s right’s. Maya Lupu is sent to an academy for troubled girls after she ruins her brother’s sorcery test. But the Academy though may not be everything it seems and Maya may have to fight to stay alive and in charge of her own fate.

Amazon: Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy

Dead City by [James Ponti]

So people may know James Ponti for his City Spies series but I found that while I love City Spies, I really loved his zombie series Dead City, it’s a great middle grade take of zombie hunting and changes the whole rules of the zombie genre. It has a great cast of characters both living and undead.

Amazon: Dead City

These were just a few favorites of the 16 books I read this month. I will be posting a lot of holiday content this month so expect to see more reviews coming back in January.

Posted in Bookmas

Bookmas Plans

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

While I’m normally more of a mood poster, a fact of often getting behind on my post and having to scramble to post. I’m going to try to plan out this month. I’m also doing the Advent Calendar post so these will be in addition to those. So I’m going to lay out plans for posts for Bookmas. You may also post about my readathons as well as reviews. Doing too much you say? Probably.

1.Christmas Stocking Tag

2. Counterclockwise Heart Preview

3. Advent Calender Day 3

4. Bookmas Plans

5. Review of November’s Reads

6. Cosy Books to Read for the Winter

7. Books That Remind me of Winter Drinks

8. Christmas Song Tag

9. Best Books of 2021

10. Books I wish I’d gotten a chance to read this year

11. My favorite Christmas films

12. What are my favorite book characters doing during the holidays

13. Best and worst books of each month in 2021.

14. Best events I participated in this year (readalongs, tags, etc).

15. Best Book you’ve read so far during Bookmas

16. Winter book tag

17. Books you want to see under the tree.

18. 2022 Anticipated books

19. Unexpected five stars

20. Jingle bell book tag.

21. Lesson’s I’ve learned as a blogger over the year

22. Favorite books as holiday pies

23. What would favorite characters trees/alters/etc. look like during the holidays

24. Which book is perfect to curl up with on Christmas Eve?

25. Santa! What did you get? Non books included too.

26. Returns, which books do you wish you could get your time back for, ie DNFs or books you finished and hated.

27. What are your favorite characters doing for New Year’s Eve.

28. Biggest Success of the Year.

29. End of the Year book Tag

30. Goals for 2022

31. My Blog Stats

Thank you again to The Blind Scribe for a lot of these ideas! I looking forward to spending the month posting and enjoying the holidays.

Posted in monthly goals, Readathons

December Goals

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

Try to finish 100 books

I’m trying to hit 100, I’m at 78 as of the writing of the writing of this post. So that’s 22 books for December. I’ve read 9 books this month, so I don’t think I’m going to make it, however I have to try. Plus I have my 12 Days of Christmas Readathon plus the Reindeer readathon to direct my reading, plus some other readathons will probably pop up that I will join as well. So maybe? Hopefully? If I turn into a book goblin.

Post Regularly

I’ve been good about posting later in the month, but the the first part of the month I tend to neglect. I need to do better about this not only because I have content to post, but because it will help my website numbers. Maybe I should do more posting in advance at the end of the month. For example this November I’m going to try and post of the beginning on December.

Work on my readathons

I’d like to at least finish my readathon and maybe the Reindeer Readathon. I’m probably going to try and somewhat participate in a few others but those two will be my main focus.

Start making plans for the new year

I’m going to spend December thinking about what I what Readathons I want to do in the new year and my reading goals for next year. I’m thinking 100 books next year but could I go 125, can I be one of those people in a few years who reads 200-250 books a year. Can I be a super reader? Does anyone read that much and have tips.

I’m also thinking about Booktube, I’m still not sure if anyone would be interested though, or whether I should wait until I have a better set up for books. I want to get back on Instagram in the new year when I move and have a better set up.

Overall those are my goals for the end of the year, I’m really looking forward to December as it is one of my favorite months of the year and I can’t wait to see what I end up reading.

Posted in monthly goals

November Goals

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

I’m excited for November, firstly because its Native American People’s Month and I plan to read/watch/listen to as much OwnVoices Native Content as I can find. Secondly and much less importantly my ankle is finally getting stronger, was weak weak after I broke it.

And has been weak in the months since but at 9 1/2 months recovery I’m starting to feel like I could stand long enough to bake again. November being the perfect time with fall and winter being literal the only time where I live where you can bake without needing a fan. Finally there are so many great fall and winter releases I can’t wait for. Now for my goals.

November

1) Read Down My NetGalley TBR

I like many people love NetGalley. I also like many people let my list build up too high. I want to work on reading and reviewing some of the books I’ve let build up on my list and try to whittle it down to get my percentage up so I can get more books and do the same thing again. Oh well, but ARCs.

2) Try and Post 3 Times a Week in November

I think I’m in a better space to posting more plus I want to get my metrics up so I’m going to try to be consistent and be on here a good deal. I’m also going to try and find more creative ways to post tags, readathons etc.

3) Engage on Twitter More in November

Last week was my two year Twitter Anniversary, but I realize I’m not engaging as much with the platform as I’d like. I’d like to start preplanning my tweets, which I know, how am I not doing that already but I just never got around to it. I mean I’ll still hop on and make fun Tweets but I want to engage with my followers/get more followers.

4) Bake More

Though not specifically blog related I’ve been wanting to do it for months but haven’t been able to just because I haven’t been recovering long enough but now that it’s cooler and my recovery is further along I should be able to go back to doing a little of the hobby that I love done.

Stay tuned for my Halloween/Samhain surprise this weekend! And enjoy your weekend.

Posted in monthly goals

Completed? How My October Goals Went

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

Did I get my goals completed, have I actually done any work this month? Was I really just on Twitter the whole month? Lets look at the goals for the month and see how much I was working and how much I was doom scrolling.

1) Try to get my reading up again.

Well this wasn’t where I thought it was because of me waiting on and worrying about my disability claims, I DNF a few things so I’m never sure whether to count them. The next thing I have to worry about getting complete is my growing TBR from NetGalley.

2) Post twice a week.

I wasn’t good at posting the first half of the month, honestly due to worries about another disability hearing and trying to get paperwork together. But now that I’ve gotten back to it I feel much more dialed in to the book twitter community and am ready to do Readathons for November.

3) Post more of my old reviews

This I’ve been good about doing I’ve gotten at least 5 reviews up and am currently getting more reviews as we speak. This has been a pretty easy task and I keep planning to be diligent about this as I still have plenty of books I need to review, hopefully I’ll complete this next month.

4) Get metrics up on the website

This one I just need to post and post consistently and the metrics will fall in. I think I’ll see this working out if I keep myself posting regularly through November, then I’ll see it in my November numbers.

So was it good month? Yes and no. I had some real life stuff that overshadowed the blog, so I couldn’t really help that. I sort of fell like I’ve missed the past few months for worrying about how disability is going to turn out. But things are looking in the right direction and hopefully things will be decided soon and I can enjoy the holidays. Disability stuff completed and behind me.

Posted in monthly goals, Reviews

October Goals

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

October, one of my favorite months because there is a focus on all things spoopy and it feels like the start of the holiday season to me, I’m hoping to be more productive in October. Oh and hopefully read some good horror.

1) Try to get my reading up again.

I read 6 books last month, I read 13 the month before I’d like to get back in the over ten category. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to hit 100 for the year but I’d like to do more than I did last year which is 81. So I’ll try and get some solid reading done in October so I can get close to that goal.

2) Post twice a week.

October looks like it’s going to be busy so I’m not going to push myself to post as often as before. If I end up with more post per week I’m fine with that, but I’m not going to beat myself up about not posting everyday, especially with some of the stuff I’ve got going on in my life. Which I’ll talk about in my weekly wrapup tomorrow. The blog is a priority but it can’t be first priority in October.

3) Post more of my old reviews

I’ve been so focused on reading I’ve let a lot of reviews built up so that I have a backup of them. I want to fix that and get my opinions out there, especially since we all know a your mind can forgot the book after awhile.

4) Get metrics up on the website

This one I really don’t control, other than posting every day which I’m probably not going to do, but I want to see more traffic on the website so I’m going to try and follow other bloggers and get more followers as well.

Posted in Discussion, monthly goals, Uncategorized

Goals Check In

Posted on by Plaid_Reader

I had some goals at the beginning of the month, and they were perhaps a little overambitious I’m going to post them here and tell you how I did.

1) Read 15 books in September

So I ended up reading 13 books in August which is a month record. This month was kind of a was because I ended up emotionally stunted about a disability hearing then caring for a family member. I still managed to read 5 books so I think despite the challenging circumstances I still did pretty good. I still might finish one book this week so that might put me up to six.

2) Post 3 times a week.

Yeah, that didn’t happen for the same reasons above I’d look at the blog screen and be emotionally blocked. But due to the importance of my disability hearing I had to give the blog a backseat for a few weeks, then someone in my family got hurt and I became a caregiver so another thing went ahead of the blog

3) Post reviews shortly after I finish the book

I’ve been doing better about this recently however I’ve got July and August reviews that I need to post because I was so busy reading and not taking time to post. I’m slowly working on that so you’ll see some older reviews coming up.

4) Get posts ready ahead of time.

Yeah, this just needs to be a goal in October. I’m able to do this for the short term, maybe for a week, but but I want to be able to be a month ahead on my posts, especially coming into my favorite seasons.

My goals include is posting more about my readathons while I’m taking part, that’s something I’m going to try to do in October. Be more present I suppose, I know I haven’t been as present to the blog this year and I think that’s my recovery from my leg but during my favorite season my goal it’s my one of my goals to and get back to engaging more.