Bout of Books 12: Goals & Tracking Spreadsheet

Bout of Books 12 starts tomorrow, and I am so thankful for it.  I ended 2014 in a bit of a reading rut, so I'm hoping that this read-a-thon will kickstart this year of reading.

As always, I'm setting very loose goals for myself, but I think I'll be able to get quite a bit of reading done during the week because I'll still be on holiday.  I just need to be disciplined.

I don't really do TBR's, so instead I put together a "pull-from pile" - a stack of books I am interested in and can pull from during the week.  The books that made the pile are:

• City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (ebook)
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
• Christ Indwelling and Enthroned by J. Oswald Sanders
• Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
• Dracula by Bram Stoker (already started)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (reread)

Reading Goals

• Read at least 2 hours every day.
• Read at least 1000 pages.
• Finish Dracula.

Over the past few months I've been letting other things (ie. the internet) distract me from reading, and then it's 2 am, and I'm too tired.  So, I installed an app on my phone that completely shuts down all data, wi-fi, apps, messaging, and phone calls (save for a few choice contacts); this way, I can stop wasting my time with lesser things.  I'll set it to run for two hours every day this next week so I can be sure I get my reading time in.

Blogging Goals

• Do a mid-way post and a wrap-up post.
• Participate in at least 3 challenges.
• Find at least 3 new bloggers/booktubers that I enjoy, and subscribe to their content.

The main reason I love Bout of Books so much is because of how the reading community comes together.  It's an excellent opportunity to meet new people who are passionate about the same things as I am and start dialoguing with them, so I definitely want to do some discovering as the week goes on.

In order to keep track of my reading progress, I made a spreadsheet, which I started using for Bout of Books 11.  If you are interested in using it to track your own progress, you can download it from my Dropbox.

Those are my goals for this next week.  Are you participating in Bout of Books 12?  If you've made goals, please share them in the comments below or link me to your blog post or video.

Happy reading!