Quarterly Check-In | My Reading & Blogging Goals

It is driving me nuts that the construct of time is completely out of whack now we’ve been in a lockdown for months and isolating for so long. Time goes by so fast but feels so slow – we’re already halfway through October!!

With the last 2 months being my best reading and blogging months, I thought I would reflect a little bit on the goals I set out for myself at the very start of 2020. How am I going? Have I achieved many of them yet?

Let’s Go!

My Reading & Blogging Goals

To start us off, these are the goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2020 – you can double-check this here – it is verbatim!

• Blog consistently with about two posts per week
• Post on Instagram consistently, about once a week
• Revamp my blog (again) with a new more functional theme – I know that my current theme has had so many issues and is no longer how I want it to look so that’s a project I’m working on ASAP.
• Focus on reading my physical TBR & spending less on books
• Achieve my Goodreads Challenge of reading 50 books again.

Looking back at these goals, I am SO SO happy that I’ve achieved basically all of them.

Here’s a run-down:

Blog consistently with about two posts per week
Not including the big 2-3 gap I took from blogging earlier this year, I have been blogging way more and really enjoying it the past 4ish months. August and September were full of blog posts and even the months before that I blogged at least about once a week. I’m so proud of myself because not only did I create so much content, gain my passion for blogging and reading again but I also stopped pressuring myself and let myself blog when I wanted.

Post on Instagram consistently, about once a week
I think it was in July that I started posting on Instagram again and since then I’ve been posting every 2-3 days (or at most, once a week) and really enjoying my photoshoots at home. I’ve been experimenting with my new theme and it’s felt so nice to feel back in this community because it’s where I started!

Revamp my blog (again) with a new more functional theme – I know that my current theme has had so many issues and is no longer how I want it to look so that’s a project I’m working on ASAP.
In case you missed it, I did do this too! I got a new (free) theme and revamped the small functionalities of my blog so it might not look exactly the same as my blog did last year but I think it looks even better.

Focus on reading my physical TBR & spending less on books
I have been working hard at this! While I did buy some books earlier this year (especially when I got Amazon Prime for the first time), I’ve been so good at making sure I think hard about what I buy and it’s been my newest goal to really get through my physical TBR and I have been! It’s an amazing feeling. I still have about 100 books to read and I want to try to get it down to about 20 before I let myself go on a super spree (That’s my personal preference though!). Hopefully, once our lockdown ends, I can finally donate all the books I have in my unhaul pile too.

Achieve my Goodreads Challenge of reading 50 books again.
This is by far one of the best achievements from my goals so far this year. Last year I set my goal at 50 and read a whopping 75 or something. This year I did the same and I’m already at 73 so perhaps I might try to get to 100 before the year ends.

Reflecting on this & Extension Goals

I am so proud of myself for achieving this much with just under a quarter of the year to go. This motivates me to keep going and to keep enjoying myself as I read and blog about it.

Thank you if you’ve been reading and commenting on my content – this year is also the best blogging year I’ve had to far statistically and it feels like the last few months – it’s also been the year where I’ve been able to have discussions in my comments and engage with you all. One of the hardest things about being a blogger is getting engagement from fellow bloggers and readers, it means the world to me when I do and it does not go under-appreciated.

Now, because I still have like 2ish months to go for the rest of 2020 (AH), I think I will set some extension goals:

1. Maintain consistency; blogging, instagram & reading wise
   I’ve done so well with blogging and sharing photos and reading at my own pace, that I want to make sure I don’t get too ahead of myself and just maintain consistency.
2. Read 100 Books
   I think I can do this. I’m gonna try my best without pushing myself too hard but I’m also not going to change my Goodreads Goal just in case.
3. Blog Hop More
   I feel like one thing I’ve been lacking is engaging with other bloggers. I find it so easy to forget about this and just stick to my own little blogging corner but I really appreciate it when bloggers comment and engage with me so I hope to do the same with them.

I think these 3 extension goals are achievable and something concrete to work towards.

So, how have your reading and blogging goals been going so far? Have you done a quarterly check-in before? This is my first time!

Until next time,