2020 Reading Resolutions

So, I definitely did not reach my goal of reading 100 books last year. I knew going into this year that I probably wouldn't hit that number. But, I'm happy to report that I did read 73 books in 2019. This is the most books I've read in a year since 2015 (the first year that I tried to read 100 books.)

To me, 73 books counts as a success. My goals for 2020 is still going to be to read 100 books in a year. However, this time I want to make a few changes in how I try to reach that goal.

1. Read the books I already own before putting books on hold at the library. I already own at least 15 books that I haven't read yet. Some of them have been on my shelf for over a year. Since it's almost the end of January, I can already tell you that I'm doing a terrible job at this resolution. I've finished 8 books so far, and only one of them came from the pile of books that I was planning to read. My library system is wonderful, but unfortunately, this means that I currently have 7 books checked out and 13 books in my holds. So, let's just say that I will stop putting books on hold at the library beginning in February.

2. Listen to audiobooks when I work out. I used to go to group fitness classes, but right now, I either go to Planet Fitness or go for a walk. Let's just be really clear that I am currently not working out as often as I need to. Knowing that I'd get to listen to a book would probably motivate me to go more often. Working out drastically improves my mood. I have a hard time convincing myself to go to the gym in the winter when it's dark and cold, but that's the time of the year when the benefits from exercising have the greatest effect on me. We'll have to see how well adding audiobooks to my workouts goes. It's either going to be great or I'm going to stop doing it pretty quickly.

3. Replace scrolling on my phone right before bed with time reading. At this point, we're all aware that screens before bed have a negative effect on sleep quality. I already struggle with getting enough sleep, but I still stare at my phone for way too long at night. Reading would probably help me fall asleep faster. I do normally have to stick to nonfiction before bed though. Otherwise, a plot twist can keep me up reading for hours later than I planned. I doubt that this would significantly increase the number of books that I read since I'll most likely be too tired to read more than a chapter or so each night. But I think that I'd rather be the kind of person who reads before bed rather than the kind of person who gets sucked into an instagram rabbit hole each night. This is actually the change that I'm most excited about.

I realized last year that I am not great at updating my reading progress on instagram, but I'm hoping to do a better time with that this year. I'd love to connect with you on instagram or on Goodreads if you have your own reading goals for this year. Let me know in the comments below what your reading resolutions look like for 2020 and how they're going so far.