6 Bookish Habits I wish to add to my routine!

The preparation to various read-a-thons – the Reading Rush that takes place this week, and NEWTs Magical read-a-thon during the month of August, made me realize that I needed to set specific time for my reading.

And it’s not that I don’t read, but I fall victim to some bad bookish habits:

• Instead of picking up a book whenever I have time for it, I wait for that “perfect” moment of relaxation to read, picturing myself seated in a quite room with some candles lit up. And as you probably know, that doesn’t happen every day, or even every week.
• I refuse to start reading a new book if I haven’t reviewed the previous one. And since I usually don’t reaview my books immediately after finishing them, this denial to read can last for days and sometimes even weeks.
• Because I usually don’t read during the working week, I put too much pressure on myself to read AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE on the weekend, and avoid making any other plans.

There is probably way more bad habits, and they deserve a separate post. But today I want to focus on the good bookish habits that I would like to add to my everyday life.

1 – READ EVERY DAY

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I recently watched a video by Books and Lala where she challenged herself to read 116 pages every day for a month. The reason behind that challenge was to see if changing her routine would improve the reading experience. Her reading routine is very similar to mine, which basically is “read as much as possible during the weekends”. Which can be stressful at times. 

Reading an X amount of pages every day that is definitely something I’ll like to try. Maybe this August when the NEWTs read-a-thon take place?

2 – PICK UP BOOKS THAT I ACTUALLY LOVE

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This one has been a huge challenge recently and I’m failing miserably at it. To the point when I’m not even sure what genres/tropes/ settings are my favorite anymore. I do have a general idea based on my favorite books from previous years, but this year has been great in terms of favorite books. 

We are more than halfway through the year, and I only added five books to my “favorites” shelf on GoodReads. What?! 

3 – REVIEW BOOKS AS SOON AS I FINISH THEM 

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Arrgh! I’ve been struggling with this one for so long! I’m always behind on my reviews and then feel guilty for picking up new books, without writing the review for the previous one. It’s a constant vicious cycle that I need to break. 

Usually, this happens when I finish reading the book right before going to sleep and then it takes forever for me to find time to sit down and review it. 

4 – DNF BOOKS MORE OFTEN AND EARLIER

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I used to be so good about DNFing books! It didn’t really matter to me if it was my own finished copy or an ARC, I would always give the book a fair try, but if I didn’t feel like reading it, or it didn’t appeal to me, I’d DNF, just put it aside and never go back to it. There was no guilt whatsoever! 

Recently, I’ve been feeling very pressured to finish every book I start. Which might have contributed to the feeling that reading slump is never too far away. An example of this silly behavior is me tying to read «Miracle Creek» for over two months. I finally finished it, and I still didn’t love it, it never got better than those initial chapters that made me consider to DNF the book. 

5 – REMEMBER TO ADD BOOKS TO MY GOODREADS TBR SHELF

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It’s a common problem to have too many books on GoodReads TBR shelf. However, I have a very little amount of books there. Because I’ve always had this fear that my TBR would get out of control and be a complete mess, which I tried avoiding by never adding new books on there. 

And the way I use it, I only add books I want to purchase, so when I’m shopping online I can open my GoodReads TBR tab and see all the books I’m excited to read in one place. As soon as buy the book I remove it from my GoodReads TBR shelf. But I noticed that I don’t really have that many new books there, so when I’m shopping I need to spend a couple of hours searching for some book recommendations. 

6 – READ SEQUELS! 

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Sometimes I even forget to buy them! Or that they exist at all! 

I’ve started so many new series in the past 3-4 years, I don’t even know what series I’ve started reading. That’s why I’m trying to put together a blog post about the book series, to help me bring some control over those into my life! 

I don’t know what it is. I love reading the first books in the series, but then I never continue with the rest. Or sometimes I make it to the 2nd, 3rd or 4th books, but wait years to read the final book, even when it’s out! What is wrong with me?

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