My 2015 Reading Goal

I've always been a reader. When I was in elementary school we had an annual 600 minute reading challenge and whoever logged the full 10 hours got a free ticket to 6 Flags. I regularly doubled up the goal with 20 hours. I've Harry Potter books 4-7 within 48 hours of obtaining a copy (some withing 24 hours).

When I got married, and more-so when Yaeli was born, I stopped finding the time to read. It was very difficult for me and weighed on my mind constantly. If I found time to read I would get a few pages in and then fall asleep. I was reading at a rate of about 1 book every month or two, if that.

I found Goodreads.com around April last year and signed up for the reading challenge to push myself to finish 20 books in 2014. It came down to the final week of the year but I completed my goal. I couldn't have felt better. I decided that since I only started tracking my progress in late April, I could probably fit more books in for this year.

So, for 2015 I've set myself a goal of 30 books. It's a modest pace of 2.5 books per month. I think I should be able to hit that goal, and in fact I've already finished 3 and January isn't over yet. I do have some very long books on my list so I'm not getting too cocky about my progress.

What I really love, though, is that having this challenge is pushing me to put my phone away on the bus and instead of wasting my time on FaceBook for 40 minutes (twice a day), I'm spending that time reading a book. I've finally become happy and comfortable with the amount of time I have to read and I'm really looking forward to not just reaching my goal but of hopefully overshooting it.