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My reading and blogging goals for 2020 and a reflection of 2019

Studious Saturday

As tradition calls, I have decided to look back on my achievements from last year and prioritise my goals for this year. 2019 was a difficult year in many ways but it was also very rewarding as I managed to read many wonderful books and grow my blog in a way I never thought was possible.

These were my goals from last year:

Read 55 books – achieved!

I finished my 55th book on New Year’s Eve! I don’t know how this always happens but in 2017 and 2018 I found myself flipping through the pages of a tense thriller which made reaching my Goodreads challenge so much easier. The same happened on New Year’s Eve 2019 when I was halfway through The Whisper Man and just couldn’t wait to see what happens.

Branch out to other genres – achieved!

This was probably the goal that I was most focused on last year and I am happy to say that I managed to achieve it. I read several Science Fiction and Dystopia novels as well as a Poetry book and a few Non-Fiction books for book club. This has made my reading experience much more valuable and I find myself reflecting on the books I have read a lot more as I am no longer reading just thrillers and contemporary literature.

Discover Spanish Contemporary Literature – failed miserably!

I feel ashamed to say that, despite living in Spain and being surrounded by books in Spanish, I didn’t read even one Spanish book last year. I already have 2 Spanish novels at home waiting for me in my bookcase but I kept putting off reading them until the end of the year when it was already too late. I hope to rectify this in 2020 as I am sure that reading in Spanish will benefit my knowledge and use of the language a lot.

Schedule my posts in advance – achieved!

Although I didn’t always schedule my posts in advance, I usually had a clear idea of the blog posts I want to write and book for the next month. Most of my book reviews were usually written and scheduled at least one day before publication which made organising my blog so much easier than before.

Design a new look for my blog – sort of achieved?

I redesigned my blog in April last year in time for my one year blogiversary however I am still not too pleased with the new design. I hope to do some more research this year to understand how I can use WordPress custom designs to my advantage and will hopefully redesign my blog layout again.

Summary: I reached most of my goals for 2019 and I am especially pleased to have read a much more diverse range of literature. I didn’t focus much on my blog design and layout after the redesign at the beginning of the year but I managed to organise my blogging to fit my schedule by planning and writing posts in advance.

My goals for 2020

Read 55 books from a variety of genres

I have decided to keep the same Goodreads challenge as 2019 and also keep my goal of reading books from many different genres. I hope to branch out into Young Adult and Fantasy this year and maybe try a few Romance books again.

Discover Spanish Contemporary Literature

I will try to reach this goal this year after completely discarding it at the end of last year. As I already have some books in Spanish at home I hope that it won’t be too difficult to achieve as long as I put time aside to focus on them rather than my most recent ARCs or my kindle.

Don’t overload myself with ARCs

I went overboard with ARCs last year and at one point found myself too overwhelmed with deadlines and had to force myself to writeΒ  reviews. I don’t enjoy this part of blogging and have decided that for this year I will only read one ARC per month to spread them out across the year. I also want to keep my Netgalley average above 80% so hopefully this goal will help me meet that target.

Redesign my blog

There is still a long way to go until I feel completely happy with my blog design. I am not very knowledgeable in this area so I know that I will have to do some research beforehand so it is quite possible that this goal might be postponed until the end of the year. However, I know that design is very important for first impressions so I want to ensure that I focus on this area as well.

Get more involved in the book blogging community

I am so pleased to have found many wonderful book bloggers who I have formed connections with through this community but lately I feel like I am less inclined to blog hop and find new bloggers. I hope to correct this in 2020 as this is a fundamental part of book blogging and also a great way to get to know others, find new books and share new ideas. I have set a preliminary target of blog hopping at least twice per week although I know that this might be hard to reach over the next three months when I know that I will have other career and travel related goals planned.

Those are my goals for 2020. Most of all, I hope to read many more interesting books across different genres and also try to read more in Spanish. I enjoy blogging but I hope to focus more on design and also find time to discover new bloggers in the community.

Question time

What are your reading and blogging goals for 2020?

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