My reading rate fluctuates between books. If there are a lot of unfamiliar words, scenes, names, or details, my reading slows so my brain can make sense of them. I can read a mystery set in a familiar city in recent years very quickly. It took me forever to get through the first book from the Wheel of Time series.

I'm pretty much the same, I've had people who know me say I'll love it. I loved the movie although it's been a while since I've watched it. I read HG2TG last year and it wasn't good enough for me to consider the next in the series.

When I'm trying to change behaviors I set very specific goals.

If you want to read more, but reading fan fiction is your obstacle, here are a few approaches to consider:

Put a time limit on your reading of fan fiction, or a limit on how many outlets you browse. Turn off notifications and email alerts/newsletters.

Another approach is to reward yourself with fan fiction for reading books.

Read books on the same device you would normally read fan fiction, you can borrow ebooks from the library or purchase them online, so you can read on your phone, tablet, or computer.

Set a goal of how many books you want to read per year, then break it down by month, then by week. Set time aside to read. I find it easier to pair a habit with another activity. Maybe read on your lunch break, or read before bed. Consistency will increase your chances of success.

Celebrate or reward yourself for reaching your goal, any goal, it can be a weekly goal or each book you read.

Many people find having accountability increases the chances of them reaching a goal, so make your goal public, or share with a friend, then check in often with your progress.

I'm a lifelong learner, I crave new information. I used to read a lot of nonfiction for work, but now that I'm retired I am still reading nonfiction, just different topics.

My ratio of nonfiction to fiction books has changed a lot since I started considering retiring. In 2019 94% of the books I read were nonfiction and in 2022 (now fully retired) it was down to 21%

I love to learn about other cultures and other people's experiences which is reflected in both my nonfiction and fiction choices. I'm currently focused on reading authors from other nations. I also like to read books that make me think, so I read a lot of mysteries.

I find that memoirs and biographies can read a lot like a novel. A well-written political or historical book can also read a lot like a novel.

I'm also a very left-brained person and find some fantasy requires too much imagination which feels hard for me.

Time management is like most skills, it can be taught and it improves with practice.

My 2 favorite techniques are time blocking and the Pomodoro technique.

I rarely buy the whole series at one time, but I also set a rule of not buying a book until I'm ready to read it. I almost did with the Wheel of Time series because the library waitlist for the books was months long, I'm so glad I didn't because I quit after book 4 of I think 20.

I guess that's one way of looking at it.

If you have people who tear you down, it's hard to build self esteem. If you have people who don't respect your boundaries, it's hard to create good habits and feel like you have control over your life.

Over the years I've evaluated just about every relationship I've had, and yes, I've cut ties with some people. I've also set boundaries in hopes of improving some of those relationships, but that hasn't always been received well by others. When someone is used to you saying yes to all requests, or allowing them to be jerks to you or others and you suddenly say, that doesn't work for me, it can be a big problem.

The interesting thing for me was, as I quit spending time with bullies and narcissists I seemed to find new friends and establish new relationships with other family relationships.

A journal or a log is about your personal journey, you decide the topic, and you decide what you want to put in it.

I generally just 'log' my books on an app, I used GoodReads for several years and just switched to StoryGraph this year. I log everything that I finish reading no matter the length or the format. Others are free to exclude what doesn't fit their criteria or add books that were DNF.

I also have a couple of reading journals. One is dedicated to series, I use this to keep track of which books I've read and to list all the books in the series in order so I don't have to keep looking it up when I need the next book.

My other journal is for a long-term project of reading books by authors from 195 countries, I plan to read fiction and nonfiction from each country. This is more of a traditional journal, where I'll write about my process of researching and finding the books as well as my impressions of the nation from the books that I've read.

I love to join challenges, there are thousands available in a variety of places. This is one of the features I love on StoryGraph. You can search for challenges in a dozen categories, and when you log a book to complete a prompt, it will show your progress in the challenge. You can see which books you've logged for each prompt and which books others have logged for each prompt.

I haven't heard of that one. I'll check it out.

I'm a retired Life and Health Coach and I've studied a lot of personality profiles, DISC, Enneagrams, Meyers-Briggs, Human Designs, Strength Finder, and several more. I'm a rather extreme example of my type in most of these frameworks, so understanding myself and others has allowed me to communicate more effectively.

As a coach knowing how people respond to inner and outer expectations made it much easier for me to guide clients into systems that work for them.

I believe we have seasons in our lives and some seasons just are made for reading, or at least not reading often. When my kids were little, it was rare that I had time to read. I remember one time we were planning a vacation and I told them I didn't care where we went, I just needed some down time so I could read a whole book, I got my wish.

I also had a serious slump from 2019-2021, we decided to move to a new state, so getting the house that we'd lived in for 25 years ready to sell and moving not once, but twice, then throw in a pandemic and trying to decide if I wanted to restart my business or retire and my mind was too full to read.

Looking back, I probably could have read more when my kids were little, I just wasn't managing my time well. I couldn't concentrate because there were always chores that need to be done. If I were in the same situation today. I would use time blocking, which is something I learned while running a business from home. I simply assigned times to focus on work, housework, family, socializing, and anything else I wanted to accomplish during the week. When I assigned time for things that were fun, I didn't have guilt or preoccupation with the other things on my ToDo list because they had their own assigned times.

My all-time favorite is probably The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, she explores how people respond to internal and external expectations. Knowing your own tendency can help you set up systems to reach goals easier while knowing other people's tendencies can help you understand what they need to get their goals met.

My favorite this year is The Insulin Resistance Solution by Berkowitz and Carpenter. Diabetes is on the rise in the US and it can be avoided if interventions are started early. This book gives clear and easy to follow guidelines on what to do if you are at risk, if you've been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, or if you see your numbers are heading that way.

Atomic Habits by James Clear and Essentialism by Greg McKeown are both excellent books for people who are trying to make better use of their time.

The Lazy Genius Kitchen and The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi are excellent books on how to organize your home. If you want a way to more equitably distribute all the tasks required to keep a home and family running smoothly I recommend Fair Play by Eve Rodsky, she gamifies sharing home responsibilities.

That sounds like a good conversation starter. I'd say, I'll put my book on top of everyone's phones.

I used to love to go to all kinds of bookstores and would buy a stack of books, find a place on my shelf, and often never read them. I had several bookshelves of books that at the time of purchase I thought I'd like to read soon. In reality, I had little time to read anything that wasn't work-related, so they sat, for years.

When we moved I purged my books and only packed 2 boxes.

Now I have a lot of time to read and I primarily borrow from the library in all formats.

I do still buy books occasionally. I buy books that either my library doesn't carry or if the waitlist is too long. I'm fine waiting for months for books unless I need them for a book club or they are part of a series and I don't want too much time to elapse between books.

I prefer to call it goals, not resolutions. I also give myself permission to change my goals when they no longer feel like a good fit for me. I review my goals monthly and quarterly.

I set the goal of reading 100 books for the year, but I expect to read more. I don't find this goal particularly helpful, I just set it because I have used GoodReads and this is the best way to see all the books I've read in any year. I've switched to StoryGraph, so this is less of a problem since it sorts easily by year and month read.

I have 2 main reading goals this year to read international authors and to tackle my owned and unread books.

1- I started a long-term project to read fiction and nonfiction books by authors from 195 countries. My goal this year is to read 52 books that count toward that project.

2- I have 14 books that moved with me 3 years ago that I haven't read, some of which I've started. This year I plan to start each of them and either finish them or decide they aren't for me and release them.

Another goal around reading is to find and try a few book clubs that meet in person. I've found 3 book clubs that are hosted by my local library and 1 on MeetUp. I plan to join each of them at least once this year and hope to find a few that I want to join every month.

I'm a retired Life and Health Coach and I've found some books are helpful for some people. I've also read so many that IMHO were a waste of paper.

If you choose to use a self-help book, I suggest you consider it a workbook, not a book to read. Plan on journaling, plan on taking time to creating systems, trying them, failing, creating a new system, trying it, and finding the pieces that work for you.

A lot of people do better when they have accountability when trying to make changes or reach a goal. That's why joining groups that have similar goals works for a lot of people. Others need to do research and understand why the goal is important to make changes.

I spent a lot of time stying why some people seem to be able to make changes easily while others seem so resistant. I study a lot of personality frameworks, DISC, Meyers Briggs, Human Design, and many others. The one I found most useful for me as a Coach was The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, she created a framework around how people respond to expectations, both interior and exterior. Knowing which of the 4 Tendencies was dominant in my clients allowed me to guide them to set up the systems that worked best for them.

Reclined in my recliner or bed with lots of pillows strategically placed so the weight of the book is not on my wrists.

I have a list on my phone that gets backed up on my computer, which then gets backed up on an external hard drive.

When I was running my business, I heard horror stories of people losing data because they only had it stored on an app. People losing their entire client email lists etc.

It doesn't have to be as hardcore as my system, but do make sure it is on your device not on a program owned by someone else.

I used to read horror almost exclusively, with maybe a bit of detective mixed in. I took a break from reading fiction when my kids were little and I had little time to read, then my reading was focused on nonfiction for work. I no longer desire reading horror, I rarely watch anything scary or brutal anymore, I just don't like to feel tense during my leisure time if I can avoid it.

I'm sorry that you had that experience. It sounds like a tough way to learn that libraries rarely add donations to their shelves. I've donated tons of books to the library, but I've always known they were going to be sold to support the library.

I hope eventually you'll recover from the shock and be able to feel good about the money you helped them raise (probably best not to ask what they sold for) and that someone else gets to enjoy the books.

This was the first year I found any challenges on good reads. They aren't easy to find. I joined the Turn of a Page community and it took me a while to figure out how to join the challenge. I had to set up my own thread for the challenge and that's where I would get the genre and tasks each month and where I would post the book I read to complete the task and be rewarded with the badge. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one who can see my own thread.

I prefer the challenges on StoryGraph. They are easy to search and when you finish a book there is a tab to click to add it to a challenge. I just scroll down to the prompt it completes and click it. I can also see which other books people have used to complete each prompt and it shows what % of the prompts I've completed.

This year my goal was to explore new genres. I read a lot, so if you decide to do something similar you can adjust the # of books or expand the amount of time you give yourself to complete the challenge.

I selected 6 fiction and 6 nonfiction genres with the goal of reading 2 books from each.

I joined the Genre of the Month Challenge hosted by Turn of a Page on Good Reads. Each month they assign a new genre with 4 prompts to be completed that month by reading books. You get a badge for each of the tasks you successfully complete.

Yes, but I'm not sure it's in the way you are referring to. I launched my career by turning what I learned in books into workshops. I started out as an Environmental Educator, basically teaching "Go Green" type classes, then was hired by my city to teach city-sponsored workshops on how to conserve our utilities.

This morphed into Health Coaching and eventually Life Coaching, I took courses to become certified in these fields, but books are how I learned much of what I needed to help my clients.

Books also helped me navigate being an entrepreneur. Marketing, social media, content creation, money management, course creation, sales, etc.

I'm not sure if people are missing it or just want to not think of Kyra as a murderer. I've seen this type of post a lot over the past several months, I avoided posts about the book until I read it last spring.

I see Kyra as someone who took her cues from nature and decided she couldn't rely on anyone else to solve her problems, so she took care of business and was intelligent enough to do it without suffering the consequences of man's laws.

I actually liked the ending and I feel like there were a few parts of the story that lead us to that ending. The whole female firefly lures potential mates to their death. I also think the whole town underestimates her intellect and the ending proved how she outsmarted them all, while her choice to stay silent allowed her to not lie.

I don't have a usual number yet. I read 22 in 2019, 10 in 2020, and 55 in 2021 (I retired). So far for this year, I'm at 160.

I have set a goal for the past few years and didn't make it in 2019 or 2020, moving and pandemic stress were both obstacles.

I set what I thought would be a stretch goal of 100 for this year and was excited when I met it in August.

A few things about my goals, if I reach them, I don't move the bar, I just enjoy seeing how far I can exceed them. If I don't meet them, I don't beat myself up, I didn't fail, I just didn't read as many books as I hoped I would. A lot can happen during a year and other things can be more important than reading.

I also set a few other reading goals to keep my reading list interesting. This year I set goals around reading a variety of genres. Next year my goal is to read authors from other countries.