Let’s Talk Bookish: Are reading goals worth it?

[snowynight]

Prompts: We’re two months into 2023 – how are you feeling about your reading this year? Do you have a yearly reading goal? Do you think that those kinds of goals help you to feel motivated to read more books, or just causes stress? If you set yearly reading goals, when and why did you start setting them? Would you consider reading without aiming for a number? If you don’t set reading goals, why not?

I once set a yearly reading goal and followed a "read X numbers of books about topic Y" reading plan. This was great to motivate me to find and enjoy books that I may not have read. However, I also felt very stressed afterwards. I don't want reading for pleasure to be another source of stress to me, so I have dropped setting reading plans.

Source of prompt: Let’s Talk Bookish – February 2023 topics/

Comments

[smallhobbit]

I do have a yearly reading goal, but I expect to exceed it. It's broken down into various categories, which are basically 'read a book from my physical TBR pile every month' and 'read a book from my library list TBR pile every month' etc. This helps stop me from disappearing under the physical TBR pile when it falls over in the night and it also means I do read a greater variety of books than I would do otherwise, which can't be bad.

[snowynight]

This is very productive!

(My ebook TBR is so huge that it daunts me to look at it.)

[garonne]

Interesting question! I have set reading goals in the past (e.g. read 52 books this year). I didn't find them stressful, exactly, but rather depressing, since I always fell far short of them.

This year I decided to do a bingo-type goal instead, which seems to be working better. Even if I don't manage to fill the whole card of 25 squares, it means I still have some lesser goals I can meet, such as filling one line of five squares.

[snowynight]

I'm glad you find something that works for you!

[severina]

I love reading goals, and I love all the Goodreads comms with prompts and challenges. I definitely think I'd be tempted to let reading slide somewhat without goals, even though I love it, and I like the challenges because they often lead me to books I wouldn't otherwise have heard of.

[snowynight]

Yeah, reading goals and challenge can be very useful.