It is the last day of September so it makes sense to finally put together my hard work and show-off my progress for #goodreadance2020! Created and hosted by the wonderful Shealea over at Shut Up Shealea who has some AMAZING content by the way. I absolutely love everything she does for the blogging community, especially for POC authors. Her blog post seriously inspired me to actually consider organising my Goodreads shelves. And I did.
I had already been doing a bit of organising and spring cleaning of my own, with cataloguing my unread books in my Lil 6-ring-binder and doing a book unhaul (although I physically can’t unhaul them because I am still in lockdown! The books are just…piling up on one of my lower bookshelves lol). But her blog post – thrust me into action when it came to actually re-jigging my system on Goodreads.
Following Shealea’s prompts for organising my Goodreads shelves, I promptly:
Sorted or organized my shelves on Goodreads
Removed book titles that I was no longer interested in
Updated my star ratings
Updated my Goodreads reviews for the books I had reviewed on my blog
It took time and perseverance, and I started with this game plan:
These were basically the shelves and the way I wanted to organise my books on Goodreads. While organising it, I did end up adding some bookshelves and removing some. For example, it was just too tedious for me to find all the books I had reviewed – and what would classify as a review because sometimes I’ll write a few sentences but not a full review on my blog.
From this game plan, I really liked the idea of classifying my read books in star rating shelves, as well as specifying other types of books like poetry, graphic novels and audiobooks to see more stats on that. I don’t read a lot of poetry or manga and I’m only just starting to read more audiobooks and graphic novels. While it was good to have most of the unread physical books I own, I didn’t bother adding them all because I scan them when I read them anyway.
It was good to re-evaluate books on my to-read as well as go through the books I had marked as read. For some reason when I first got on Goodreads I added a bunch of box sets that doubled up with the books I had read and I got to change some of my ratings to fit how I would rate them now.
I still kept my monthly shelves cause I like to see what books I’ve read throughout the year (I remove those shelves when the next year ticks over). Same for the specific shelves for Asian and bipoc authors because I do try to read more diversely.
I’m super duper proud to show my before and after:
Although now I have MORE shelves, these ones are vastly more organised, accurate and congruent and it makes me feel so happy!
I’m very glad I did this, I have always been a fan of organising everything and it took a lot for me to get around to Goodreads. I feel more confident about my reading and my organisation now and I’m so motivated to add more to my shelves as I read and discover more releases.
Some strategies I would recommend if to keep yourself realistic and don’t strive to do it all in one day. This took me several days while listening to audiobooks and praying I don’t strain my eyes again. You won’t get around to all of them in a go, so take it one day at a time and remember what you’re striving for!
Have you organised your Goodreads shelves this September and participated in #goodreadance2020? How did you go?
Until next time,
12 Comments
Meeghan reads
I like this! I don’t really use the shelves in Goodreads. I don’t know why. I think maybe I just haven’t gone through and set them up properly, and I have about 800 books listed as read on there, so… I also don’t want to deal with that!!
Tracy
omg I can see why, 800 books to organise sounds like hell! I’m so happy I didn’t have that many on my Goodreads haha thank you!
evelynreads1
Ooh I love to see a good organising system!
(www.evelynreads.com)
Tracy
Thank you!
Julie Anna's Books
I definitely need to do this! I’d say my GR is fairly organized right now, but I could definitely re-categorize and update ratings on some things!
Tracy
I feel so satisfied now it’s done so I’d highly recommend it! 🙂
Ursa
I’ve participated in that challenge! I mostly fail haha, or more like, this is still a work in progress! I’ve been able to reduce a bit my To-Read shelf, which was my first goal, but it is not yet done, done. I still have so much to do! But like you said, I’m being realistic, and instead of spending a whole day on that, I’m doing it from time to time, when I have a few minutes to spare. There is still so much to do, but I’m optimistic!
Tracy
I totally understand how overwhelming this challenge is – you can do it! 🙂
lachocola
I like this organization! It reminds me that I probably should update mine. The organization in your handwritten binder also looks like a great idea, too, separating both digital and physical copies into their own category.
Tracy
thank you! it’s definitely helped me a lot 🙂
Chana @ Paper Procrastinators
Omggg, I’m in awe!! Your shelves look so so organized now, it’s amazing! When I first started using Goodreads I had plans to make allll kinds of shelves, and tbh I used them for a bit but now I just add the books I read and that’s it 😠I definitely have to go and organize that mess sometime soon
Tracy
ahh thank you! Now that it’s done, the relief is amazing – I hope your organisation goes well too <3