Reading Plans for 2018: The 10 Book TBR & Series Read Throughs

Happy 2018 y'all! It's, of course, the time to set some new goals for my reading and in 2018 I really want to make reading a more relaxed activity than it was in 2017. I feel like I put a lot of pressure on myself in 2017 to read certain books (and honestly I often prefer to have goals and deadlines to achieve), but it became more stressful than I would have liked in 2017, so I really want to change that up in the new year. So, with that in mind, I present to you the 10 Book TBR!

Throughout the course of 2017, I found myself a bit stressed toward the end of each month and felt the need to scramble to get all of the books I set out to read during that month finished. I also felt this need to *still* read the books I didn't get to, and I found myself rolling over books from month to month and felt a ton of pressure (albeit, this was all pressure I was putting on myself) to get those books I was "behind" on completed.  It became exhausting and while I found so many excellent books through setting monthly TBRs for myself, toward the end of the year I did feel a bit of burnout with trying to get everything completed for the month.

Over the past few months, I've been trying to figure out a way to strike a balance between keeping myself motivated with my reading without stressing myself out. I'm a very goal-oriented reader and I thoroughly enjoy setting TBRs for myself to try to accomplish, but I really hate that I sometimes felt stressed that I wasn't able to finish all of the books I set out to read during the month. That's not the point of reading! I came up with an idea that I'd like to try out for 2018 that will hopefully combat reading stress for myself: The 10 Book TBR!

During the course of 2018, I'm going to set 10 Book TBRs. These TBRs will not be monthly TBRs, but books that I want to focus on before moving onto my next group of 10, if that makes sense. Basically, what I'll do is pick 10 books that I want to get to next and focus on getting those read, no matter how long it takes me to get through them. Once I get through those 10, I'll pick my next 10, and the cycle will repeat itself. There may be times when I'm able to get through more than one 10 Book TBR in one month and there might be other times when one 10 Book TBR takes me a few months to complete and both are okay! I really want to find the books on my shelf that I'm the most excited about and actually focus on them instead of worrying about whether or not I can get through them in the course of the month.

There are a few caveats to this plan as it's far from perfect, but here are the things I'm going to keep in mind as I take on this new reading plan:

1. Each 10 Book TBR needs to have at least one book in the following categories:

• Kindle eBook
• TBR Jar Pick
• Book of the Month Book
• A re-read

2. I'm planning to take on several series read-throughs during 2018 (find out which below!) and because I'm not sure at what pace I'll be reading those series and I'm buddy reading a few of them, I'm not going to include them in the 10 Book TBRs.

3. You all know I love participating in readathons and sometimes those readathons have challenges or themes to adhere to which may fall outside of the current 10 Book TBR I'm working on. I'm going to be extremely flexible with myself on this so I can enjoy myself as much as possible during readathons which - again - are meant to be fun!

4. While I'm not going to be posting monthly TBRs, I'm still planning to post monthly wrap-ups because I think it's fun to reflect on how many books you can get done within a designated period of time, so be on the look out for those!

Aaand those are all of my "rules" surrounding this idea for a 2018 reading plan! I'm hoping this will let me feel a little less restricted and stressed with my reading for the year. It's not a perfect plan, I'm sure, but I'm excited to try it out to see how I like it! :D

I'm also planning on reading through several series this year which I'm definitely looking forward to doing. I tend to focus my reading on stand alones, but I do really enjoy sticking with a group of characters and seeing how a story develops over several books. The following series are the ones I will be focusing on getting through in 2018:

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling*

The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff*

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Steifvater

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Children's Books by Roald Dahl*

*re-read

And those are my main goals for my reading in 2018! I really hope that this year is a bit more relaxed and I'm really exceited to see what my reading year has in store! Let me know what your reading goals for the new year are in the comments and I hope you all have a fantastic 2018!