In preparing my 2017 goals for my blog, I decided to glance at what goals I established for myself in 2016. Here are the 10 goals I set for myself:
- Review at least one book per week
- Post a least 2 discussions a month
- Finish The Lunar Chronicles, The Infernal Devices, The Mortal Instruments and Throne of Glass series
- Read at least 1 classic per month
- Be more organized
- Make a dent in all my ARCs and other review copies
- Read ALL the books I currently own
- Finish my novel
- Draw more
- Have fun
Guess what…I only accomplished two of those! I posted at least 2 discussions a month, and generally, had fun. I didn’t even accomplish 50% of my goals – what a disappointment! Well, for 2017, I’ve started the year off on a better foot with a lot of planning. So, I’m going to attempt this again with slightly different goals & to hold me accountable, I’m sharing them with you. Additionally, I’ve created a plan for most of them to help me along the way, instead of only saying I’ll do something. I’m also not establishing ten because come on, how can I focus on that many? Let’s see how this goes!
1. Be. More. Organized.
I set this goal for myself every year. I start okay and then gradually lose track. So, this year, I’ve set up a bit of a system. First, I purchased the Volt planner from Ink & Volt. In this planner, there are pages for Yearly Goals, Weekly Goals, Journaling, and Morning/Noon/Night planning. It’s akin to a Bullet Journal without the DIY aspect of it (which works for me, I’m lazy).
On top of that, I’m creating a reading journal & a blog journal. The reading one will be where I keep track of the books I’m reading along with notes. The blog journal will be where I write down my ideas so I can stop forgetting what they are when I finally sit down to schedule posts!
I’m hoping that with these three things, I’ll be able to stay on track with posts, store stuff, and life easier.
2. Improve my writing
I’ve noticed over the past several months that my blog writing has become, well, a bit lazy. In book reviews, I tend to recycle similar phrases or words, and in my discussions, I lack any inspiration to make them entertaining. While I’ll stay true to who I am as a writer, I can improve in this department. If anything, it will improve the quality of my content and make me feel more confident as a writer.
3. Read outside of my comfort zone
Looking at my reading trends of 2016, I read almost exclusively YA fantasy and YA contemporary. They even all had similar elements. Girl tries to fit in. Or. Magical powers and a brooding bad boy. While I love those stories, I found myself becoming bored with some of them – even if they were really good! In 2017, I want to branch out. I want to read a wider array of YA, especially indie & self-published authors. I want to read adult fiction. I want to read memoirs, women’s fiction, books about politics, about history. Doing this will change the type of recommendations I give and the book reviews I publish, but it’s important I’m reading what I want to read and expanding my library and knowledge. There are so many amazing books out there, it is not a great feeling to feel as if you are in a bubble!
4. Read more books. Read less feeds.
I saw someone post this on social media (ironic, I know), but it hit the nail on the head – a total, AH HA moment. I spend so much time trying to stay up-to-date with what everyone is doing. I worry about Instagram and posting enough. I spend so much time that I won’t read for an entire day because, instead, I’m reading feeds. Don’t get me wrong, I love you guys, but that’s a bit much.
My plan for this is to:
- Don’t check my phone first thing in the morning. Literally, do anything else.
- Limit the amount of time I do spend on it throughout the day.
- Read (or watch a show/movie) for at least 30 minutes every day.
Small steps, but hopefully those will help.
5. Focus on community
The last half of 2016 I was feeling so detached from the community. This is, quite literally, the exact opposite of why I joined this whole shebang in the first place. So, I want to spend 2017 putting the focus back on the community and reconnecting with all of you guys again. I want to blog hop at least once a week, be more engaging with the bookstagram community, and (especially this) not take over a week to reply to comments! I miss having some amazing conversations with all of you!
I’ve narrowed down what I want to accomplish with my blog into 5 resolutions. I feel like this time they are more manageable. They also aren’t so specific that I can elaborate on them as the year goes on.
What are your blog resolutions?
Or what are your reading resolutions?
45 Comments
I love your resolutions! They’re inspiring and relatable! I can agree with you with 4. READ MORE BOOKS. READ LESS FEEDS. I seemed to read so many blogs, which could be a good thing, but my TBR needs love and care, honest! I think i need to improve on more well, BOOKISH, things. My blogs is a book blog, I like to claim, but I need to improve on more reviews and discussions about books! And OMG, I want your Planner! I’m a bit rubbish at the DIY part of my BuJo and will put this on my wish list! Wonderful post…
Aw! Thank you! I hope they inspired you a bit 🙂 AW SEE. I read too many social media posts, not enough blogs and not enough books. We’ve got to find that perfect balance. The planner is super nice! It’s not AS customizable as the bullet journal because there isn’t space for notes (except for in the back), but it does have a monthly challenge, journal & reflection pages, goals, and weekly planning. It’s perfect for me, because I’m lazy & bad at the customization of a bullet journal lol
Great goals for 2017! And I love how you’ve even put plans I place to help you achieve them. I’m pretty sure I need that planner!
I love the planner! I like the journal/reflection sections. And the weekly planning is so neat and clear because of how it’s split between morning, noon and night. My eyes like it lol
Great goals! I haven’t written my post yet but there will definitely be a few in common!
Awesome! Good luck on your goals 🙂
Happy new year and good luck with your goals! I like how concrete your goals are and how you’re even planning for some of them already like with the journal you bought. I also hope to do a bit more blog visiting this year. I usually do well with replying to comments and visiting their blogs back, but I also want to visit blogs outside of that.
I hope you can step out of your comfort zone and read more genres, I started doing that a few years ago and have slowly broadened the genres I read and I am so happy I’ve done so. A little more than a year ago I never had read a cozy mystery, which is now one of my favorite genres. Although there are some genres I still haven’t fully gotten in to, but I keep trying.
I used to be so good at commenting back & then I noticed that some comments would go unreplied to for over a week. Unacceptable! Especially because I would be ON my computer, just not commenting back. So far I’ve been doing well! Commenting within a day or 2 (but it’s only been a week since I started this lol)
See! I might be missing out on some potential favorites! I definitely need to. Once I get through some of the books I already own, I’m going to start looking outside of that.
I’m loving the goals as I could incorporate more of these into my own blogging and reading in 2017! And hey you can call 2016 a practice year 🙂
Tanya Patrice
Girlxoxo.com
Glad I could inspire some of your goals! Good luck and happy new year!
Such great resolutions/goals!! I agree with reading more and less feeds. I totally noticed that and want to change it a bit. Happy New Year and good luck with these!
Hopefully we can both stay away from social media a bit this year. So far, I’m failing just a bit hahah
Great goals! I opted not to set any. Ha, I know. Bad. But I’ve got a crazy 2017 head of me and I don’t want to start off failing. Plus 2016 really just kicked my butt, so I didn’t do much of anything for OBN and my reading. However, like you, I want to connect with the community more. I could never get into Bloglovin, I have it and I follow on it, but it kinda frustrates me. So I switched back to Feedly just this past weekend. I’m trying to make it a point to spend 15-20 minutes a day checking out the blogs I frequent and comment more. Normally, I just wait till I do a Sunday Post, which is bad, I need to be more active. So good luck to both of us. 😉
There’s nothing wrong with that! I know plenty of people who don’t. I just love the idea of starting fresh with clear goals in mind. 15-20 minutes a day is better than me! I’m aiming for once or twice a week lol (but I usually spend a few hours doing it each day). I found that for weekly memes I felt like it was such a chore to comment & if I wasn’t able to do it ON the day of the meme I felt like I was messing up. So I gave up memes lol >.<
These are such great goals, good luck! 😀 I definitely need to be more organized and branch out of my comfort zone when reading. One classic a month is a good number. I want to read more classics this year, too. Oh yes, I need to finish my novel as well. Happy New Year, Molly!
I wasn’t able to do 1 classic per month last year so I don’t know if I’m going to try that again this year lol I generalized it to just reading out of my comfort zone instead, because that opens up a whole lot of genres hahah
These sound like great goals, AND they sound entirely doable! Organization helps SO MUCH. That’s why I have three spreadsheets that I use like crazy, one for review copies, one for blog posts, and one for books I’ve read. I’d be lost without them. And I kinda slacked on the community things in December. Last year in January I started out so driven, visiting so many blogs, etc., and then I feel like it tapered out slowly over the year, so this January I have renewed my efforts to try and find more blogs and interact more again! We can work on that goal together 😛 Good luck with all of these!
Ugh, I need to get organized with my review copies. I actually stopped accepting any because I fell SO FAR BEHIND. Like, ridiculously, embarrassingly behind on them. On WordPress there’s this little graphic calendar that shows you visually which days you posted for all 12 months with just a blue dot to show you. I noticed around August I began to slack and my posts were less frequent & that’s also when I felt like I was failing in the community. Hopefully we can both last the whole year this time!
I started reading out of my comfort zone last year and finally read some adult fiction, and I absolutely LOVE it. I’ve found an entire new genre for me to fall in love with, which is always great! I’m just hoping to keep up with my blog because it’s my first year blogging (GAH!) and I want to read 200 books this year! Good luck! ?
Aw see! I feel like I’m missing out but I never know where to start with reading out of my comfort zone! And WOW 200 books! Good luck with that – I don’t think I’ll ever get to that, unless most of them are comic books lol Good luck!
These are AMAZING goals! I think I am going to have to add them to my resolutions list as well because I feel like I need them too especially the read more books and less feeds. Love your goals for the year I hope you achieve them. MY resolutions are to keep up on blogging and to read at least three or four books a month.
Ah, I’m so glad I inspired you! 3-4 books a month is a good goal! It’s reasonable. Good luck with 2017!
These are the perfect set of goals for this year! I def need to get more inspired in my posts but… I don’t know how to at the moment? I think I just need to sit back and actually plan some shit instead of doing everything on the fly like I do ATM. Great post and best of luck achieving all of these goals. I’m sure you’ll get there!
I find that if I wait till last minute to write a post, I just rush through it to get it done. So maybe planning will help you out! Or just write down ideas as they come to you, if one really speaks to you, write that one first so you’re excited about it 🙂 Good luck!
Thanks for the tips! <3 I think this is a great idea to focus on this year. I'll definitely work on it.
Thanks! I hope you accomplish everything this year! 🙂
I so agree with all of your resolutions Molly! 😀 reading wise I want to read more broadly. I mean, I stay true to contemporary and fantasy but I want to read more diverse books, books about feminism and rape culture, and maybe start reading more historical fiction especially about WWII <3 in terms of blogging, I want to have a better method for bloghopping because lately I realized I've been doing it less and less. Which makes me sad because as my blog grows, I tend to blog hop less 🙁 and yes to that blogging journal! I have one where I write down all my ideas and schedule and I love it. Makes it easier to brainstorm. Good luck with 2017 Molly <3
Ditto with your reading goals! That’s all within my “read outside my comfort zone” goal. I use Bloglovin’ to do blog hopping. I save posts & then sit down a day or two a week to blog hop the saved posts. Last year, I forgot to do that a lot, though. So I’m trying to do better this year. Good luck with 2017 to you as well!
I love your goal about reading more books and fewer feeds. Though I love keeping up to date with what’s going on online, I feel as though lately I’ve become a bit too attached to it. I’m definitely going to try to distance myself a bit from social media in 2017.
It’s so easy to get caught up and lose track of time on social media! I’ll be scrolling & next thing I know it’s been an hour. What a waste of time! xD Hopefully we can both be not as addicted to it this year.
Brilliant goals, Molly! I did a little reading outside my comfort zone last year and I’m so glad I did! I hope to expand on that this year too. I really suggest Homegoing! It’s literary fiction, but it’s not too heavy and it’s only short so I feel like it’s a great starting point. Plus it’s super beautiful and important!! I should try and be more organised too but honestly I don’t see that ever happening for me ?
I looked up Homegoing but there are several of them! Do you remember the author’s name?
Haha, yeah, that could be helpful ? It’s by Yaa Gyasi!
These are all great goals! Organization is so important and since I started putting more effort in staying organized, I feel like I’m enjoying blogging more. I keep a blogging planner and it’s been a life saver. Good luck with all of your 2017 goals!
That’s awesome! I’m glad it helps. I’m such a planner/list person, so it’s always helpful for me to stay organized. Good luck to you as well!
great resolutions Molly! I have also set one to be more organized, and even though it’s only 4 days into the year I have been loving it. I am also try to interact more with the book community; I feel like sometimes I get so wrapped up in producing my own content that I forget to comment on others, which is the best part!
Great post 🙂
That’s the same thing with me. I’ll work on my OWN blog without actually visiting others. Which, yes, is the best part! In fact, that’s what I’m going to do today – some blog hopping! 😀
I hear you, girl. Especially in December I was just away from my computer a lot and really had trouble feeling connected to the blogging community. I still visit and comment and stuff, but I’m nowhere as active as I used to be and I really kinda miss it. I’m excited to see what books you read in the coming months and hope you find some great ones — I myself actually read more than YA/Romance, but I pretty much only blog about those two genres so I’d love to get recommendations.
Happy new year and I hope you achieve all of these in 2017! 🙂
Yeah, that’s how I felt. Like…I’m still HERE but not really HERE. hahah that makes sense…. >.< I'm just such a slow reader/don't read every day so I only ever read YA SO that I can have reviews on my blog (since that's what I blog about) but I feel like I'm missing out on so much!
Happy New Year to you as well & I hope you accomplish all your goals!
My reading resolution is basically to read more diverse books and try to review some of them! Which sort of ties into my blogging resolution to update my blog more often (and post more book reviews!). I should probably be reading less feeds too haha. You’re planner looks awesome btw!
That’s perfect! At least your two goals go together so if you do one, you’re finishing the other one as well!
Great post Molly! These are such great resolutions. I took a step back from blogging at the end of last year and am excited for a fresh start. I definitely want to read outside of my comfort zone this year. There are sooo many great books out there and I wonder how many of them I miss out on just because they aren’t my “typical read.” Hope you don’t mind me admiring and acquiring this post idea in the future 🙂 xoxo
Thank you! I hope you can accomplish your goals 🙂 And yes, you can totally create your own post! It’s not my original idea, anyways 😉
love your resolutions!! I am so guilty of falling down the social media rabbit hole and it taking away from my reading time. I’ll literally start read a book, think of something, stop reading to check whatever it was thinking about, and spend the next hour reading twitter and instagram. WHAT??? I need to get back to reading– but like you I also want to be more connected to the community and those 2 things work against each other 🙁 I guess I just need to time manage better!
Thanks! Yeah, I think its easy to get caught up on social media and lose so much of your time. But yeah, it is really hard to manage the time between the two!