We originally intended to give 2022 book goals a pass, but after mulling on it over the past week or so, we’ve decided to set a few this year to maintain momentum and add a bit of structure into our reading lives. This goes for life goals too. These are listed at the foot of this page.
After listening to James Clear’s Atomic Habits, we wanted to make our aims achievable, which means having systems in place so that we can make regular process without major disruption. For all of us, this tends to involve making slight changes in our schedules. For instance, when it comes to books, going to bed early can make a big difference as this is the place and time where we make solid space to read – even an extra 30 minutes adds up over the course of a month.
Using time more effectively helps our reading quota too. Audiobooks have been a massive win in the past year and I’ve developed several productive listening habits that make the most of my downtime so we’ll be integrating more listening into our days.
2022 Book Goals
As an overreaching book goal, we we’d like to beat our 2021 total of 132 books read so I’ve set this at 133. The lion’s share falls to me again although Al and Little M have increased their targets. Our second shared aim is to read at least 50% women writers to rectify our 2021 ratio of 70/30 men/women.
Mel
- Read 75 books
- Complete a 2022 book challenge – ideally a readathon (this is a little crazy – I’d like to try it though)
- Listen to 15 audiobooks
- Read the Earthsea Cycle (I’ve only finished one entire Ursula K. Le Guin book)
- Annotate my books
- Reduce my current TBR pile by 50% (I’d like to say 100% but I have around 80 books on there at the moment)
- Buy 80% secondhand and 20% new books.
- Swap books with friends and family
- Review 6 books on the blog
- Write a complete draft of a new novel
Al
- Finish 30 books
- Read more diverse authors
- Complete one book by Charles Dickens
- Complete one book by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Little M
- Read 28 books
2022 Life Goals
On the non-bookish front, we’ve set six main 2022 goals. These are mostly based around our home patch to make it easier to complete them:
- Climb 32 Ethels (The Ethels are all the Peak District hilltops over 400m above sea level). We’ve already climbed 13 together (Al and I have probably scaled around 40 but we’re only counting family ascents).
- Climb 5 Wainwrights
- Cook 2 new recipes a month
- Cycle 4 tracks in the Peak District
- Go to the theatre/cinema 12 times
- Reduce energy usage and waste by 15%
Alongside all of these, my main priority is to keep this blog, bookstagram and other social media accounts going. I really enjoy writing and photography, not to mention the lovely community aspect. Our followers have increased on almost every account (bar Facebook where I inexplicably was blocked and had to start a new page). The blog had the most dramatic growth and catapulted to 123K views despite having to reduce my involvement last year. My book blogging goals post kept me going.
Like many people, the biggest challenge is fitting everything in with family and work, both of which need more input these days. Again, it goes back to little and often, together with clear routines – something we didn’t really have in 2021, but I’m hopeful that we can create a better system in 2022, especially armed with the knowledge I acquired from self-development books. I’ll be dipping into these throughout the year, as well as reading new ones (mostly on audio)
We hope you have an incredible 2022!
Mel, Al and Little M
xxx
What are your 2022 book goals?
