Cataloguing My Entire Physical TBR & My Latest Bookish Journal Spreads

In the last few weeks as my reading has been amping up and I’ve been more motivated to read than ever before – I was really struggling on choosing books to read because I wanted to read them all. It also occurred to me that my new goal for my reading is to read more of my physical unread books (so that I can buy more books). It’s not entirely my goal to read every single unread book I own (what’s the fun in that) but I’d personally be happy and feel comfortable buying more books if I only had about 20 books on my physical tbr.

Recently, my large aliexpress order also slowly started coming in the mail. It was like Christmas seeing little tidbits of things I bought over 2 months ago start to show up. One of those was a 6 ring binder! I have been admiring so many people on Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube with their beautiful 6 ring binder journals. A lot of them are kpop journals and while they are relaxing to watch, I personally just wanted my own 6 ring binder to journal about bookish related things more for the aesthetic than the practical purpose my Bookish Bullet Journal/Reading Journal has. Not to mention that a binder has way more flexibility than my journal because it isn’t limited by its page count and is much less expensive to acquire.

Bringing those thoughts together, while going through my Studio Ghibli watchlist, I decided to start journaling some spreads in this new binder by tallying up my reading so far this year and then cataloguing my physical and digital tbr. So I thought I’d share those with you guys!

Reflecting On My Spreads:

I can’t quite explain it but being able to see and note down every book I have to read (or re-read because I had totally lost forgotten the plot) was not only satisfying but gave me a greater sense of control. It was creating my own massive to-do list so that I felt even better whenever I finished a book! It was a little shocking to see my physical TBR is a total of 103 books but it is about a quarter to a third of my collection. At first, it was intimidating that I still have so many books to read but then it turned into a magical challenge because it means I still have so many great books to dive into and enjoy. From there, I’ve made it a mini goal to get this down to about 50 books over the next 6 months (motivation allowing). Hence, my book buying ban has begun!

I don’t think I’ll be super strict about my book buying ban like I’m not going to make myself feel crap if I really want a book – but it’ll be more about remembering that there is all the time in the world for me to buy what I want and there is no rush if there are 103 books ahead in the queue.

I also had fun looking at my digital tbr, because in the last few months, there were more than a few good kindle deals that I indulged in. I cannot help myself when a good looking book is only like $3. That’s cheaper than a coffee!

I think this not only has organised my TBR and my reading more but also motivated me more! I ended up creating a quote page too that I have yet to fill because I see it on so many other reading journal set-ups but I’ve never been one to find quotes all the time. In this instance, I, again, have more flexibility of adding quotes when I feel like it and I’m so inspired to keep journaling more in this little binder – whether it’s about reading or not.

Flick Through The Spreads Here:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by tracy's bujo (@trufflejournals) on Sep 5, 2020 at 10:17pm PDT

What do you think of my physical tbr and my journal spreads?

Have you catalogues your unread books before?

Until next time,