As I said in my last Wellness Wednesday post, I don’t feel great about making solid goals or plans for this year. It’s really time for me to take the pressure off. Having said that, I do have some resolutions in the book and blog realms of my life. I’m not sure if these will happen, and if they don’t, that’s okay. But this is how I’d like my 2016 to go.

1. I have 28 books on my priorities list in 2016. These include books on my physical or virtual TBR, highly anticipated 2016 releases, and the books currently on my “to investigate” list (GoodReads). By the end of 2016, I’d like these books to be either read or culled from my list. (Or, in the case of delayed publishing dates, moved to a 2017 list.)

2. Beyond these book priorities, I’d like my reading  year to be veeeeery laid back. As in, I’d be totally happy reading only those priority books next year. I imagine I’ll read twice that, at least, but if I don’t, hey, that’s okay.

3. I also want to be picky about books added to my to-investigate pile. Test books right away and cull often.

4. I’d like to spend some of that laid back time revisiting books. There are some old favorites I haven’t touched in years, and some books from early in my blog years that I’d love to re-experience, books I’d like to try on audio, etc. If half my 2016 books come from rereads, I’d be totally happy.

5. I want to reinforce good habits that I’ve started to get away from: if a book isn’t catching me, don’t read it. If a book is “just okay,” don’t bother finishing it. It’s better to read a lot fewer books and have the abandoned ones pile up, than to have dozens of books at the end of the year that I can’t even remember.

6. I doubt this’ll happen, but it would be awesome if 50% of my reading came from audiobooks in 2016. Of course, there’s a limitation – the library system only has so many audiobooks, and I’m super picky about narrators – so it probably won’t happen. Still, I’d like to have a significant listening portion to the year. With lots of walking to go along with it.

7. I’d like to be much more laid back on the blog. With all the chaos this year, I let myself stress-blog too often. Stress-blogging basically means drafting and drafting and drafting, sometimes months in advance, and having very detailed structures of what, when, and how to post. And while stress-blogging makes me feel better in the moment, it eventually burns me out, and I don’t want that to happen again!

8. Along similar lines, I’d like to seriously reduce my blogging frequency in general. I tend to go overboard in one area of my life or another, and blogging is an easy one to get carried away with. I really need to address the sources of my stress/anxiety and my need to post-post-post-write-write-write, and not just indulge them.

9. I’d like to give myself the freedom to sway. If a bookish event comes around and I want to read a whole bunch all at once, or post every day for two weeks, or whatever, that’s okay. If I get involved in a writing project, or go on vacation, or have family things to deal with, it’s okay if I don’t post on the blog for a few weeks. It’s also okay if I’ve planned for these things and I schedule posts during this time. Basically, I give myself the freedom to read and blog however I want, while not giving myself the freedom to use blogging as an excuse to avoid other parts of my life (an all too frequent habit).

10. Lastly, as a fun goal/resolution, I plan to go to Half Price Books once per quarter and attempt to restock my home library, since I seriously over-drained it this past fall. Woohoo!

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.