I have been struggling to get posts together the past couple of weeks. Big home projects and then classes starting back were the biggest deterrents of it. Now, fortunately, a lot of that is wrapped up and I'm getting in the groove of my scholarly readings as well.
Well, I've been a blogger for over six months, but it still feels like I have barely cut my teeth in it. I have definitely not blogged as often as I would have liked these past few months. So, with that in mind, I have propositioned myself to do better this year. I have come up with a few areas that I would like to see the most improvement in:
- Time management. Period. I am the queen of procrastinators and it showed last semester in my personal and professional lives. If I can stay on top of things I am able to do and enjoy more in life. This would mean keeping ahead on my classwork and writing reviews shortly after finishing a book. I have a lot of difficulty with both of these concepts.
- Take notes while reading books. There are several reasons for this. A couple of the most important are that I want be able to write better reviews and be ready to make difficult decisions about the book, such as its fate if I need to "clear off the shelves" later. My memory and attention span is not what it used to be, as much as I hate to admit it.
- Become more active socially online. Another downfall of my procrastination. Once I finally catch up on things, I am usually so burned out I do not want to "deal" with anyone. I'd rather hide in a cave at that point actually. Once I post pictures of my office you will see that I almost do hide in one.
- Curtail the "book-buying" urge. I know, I know. Crazy, right? I will be buying a select amount of books because they genuinely intrigue me, but I will mainly be focusing on a few debuts, new books by my small handful of favorite authors, and extremely good deals. There are books on my shelf that I have not read and I have bought more. The frugal side of me is severely irritated with this. It wants me read what I have and curb the urge to do the "armful drop"of books into the shopping cart.
These points bring me to the main topic of the post: 2012 Challenges. I'm joining up in several to both support the bloggers and keep myself on track. I think they fit within my guidelines and what I had in mind for the new year.
2012 TBR Reading Pile Challenge
Hosted by Evie at the Bookish Book Blog. This challenge is probably the most important one for me this year. I feel horrible when a book sits on my shelf and I do not get around to reading it. So, for this reason, I am promising myself that I WILL resolve this and hit my shelves before I hit the book store. (Another aspect as to why this is going to be difficult for me, I love buying books!) I'm going for at least "Sweet Kiss", but hopefully I'll be able to do better.
Goodreads
The Goodreads 2012 Reading Challenge promotes reading in general. Choose an amount of books to set as "to be read" this year. I chose 50 last year and beat that by topping out at 67. I set this year's as 75. I think I will beat that as well, but it is impossible to say what the year will bring for me.
The 2012 Debut Author Challenge
Kristi at The Story Siren is hosting this one once again. I am going to aim for the required 12 books in this one.
The 2012 Young Adult Reading Challenge
This one is an automatic one, right? The Eclectic Bookshelf is hosting this one. Since I'm holding myself to the challenge of 75 books this year, I'm aiming for the "Mega-size" in the challenge.2012 Ebook Challenge
Hosted by Workaday Reads and should be a shoe-in for me. I've had a lot of luck with galleys and friends' Nook "lend-me" system that I think I can at least knock out a "CD" level of 10 this year.2012 Sensational Seconds Challenge
Stemming from the higher amount of debut books I read in 2011 are a solid string of "second" books in those series' in 2012. Reading in the Corner is hosting it and has a great list for participants to get them started. I think I can pull off the "level 4" of 13+ books, but that makes me a little antsy. Oh well, I'm going for it anyway!So yeah, that's what I have in mind for this year...and the post is ONLY a week late, right? LOL
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