People often ask, “how do you do it all?”
They mean working full-time, cooking, cleaning (all but 1 glorious day every week when Nester comes to attack the mountain of ironing. Remember I hate laundry), blogging, running the business, being a wife and mother and going to gym.
Aside from being mostly organised and being extremely intentional about my time, I watch almost no TV (I’ve stopped watching Survivor this year!) and read almost nothing.
Okay, I’m being a bit melodramatic about the reading but compared to how much I used to read, I read practically nothing last year. LOL
When I was going through my reading book (yes, of course I have a reading book – don’t you?), for the early part of 2010 everything was about babies and sleep – I read 6 books on the same topic – how to get your babies to sleep through the night.
The answer?
It depends on the baby, how many you have and how much you like to hear crying.
he still sleeps like that 🙂
Turns out we had one who freaked out if left to cry, one who freaked out more and we didn’t like to hear them cry since they woke their twin and parents who had to function at work the next day, so we did things the old-fashioned way and waited for them to outgrow their night wakings at 10 months.
My goal was 7 books a month, 2 non-fiction, same as it’s been the last couple of years BUT when I had my birthday in August I realised I was being unrealistic so changed the goal to 5 books a month, 1 non-fiction.
I ended up reading 46 books in total for the year, 28 fiction and 18 non-fiction. If not for all those baby sleep books, I think I would have read more on the whole, as I take longer to get through non-fiction than I do fiction.
Are you the same?
Look – I tabulated all the reading for the last 5 years.
Year | Fiction | Non-fiction | Total |
2006 | 53 | 20 | 73 |
2007 | 80 | 14 | 94 |
2008 | 75 | 8 | 83 |
2009 | 59 | 11 | 70 |
2010 | 28 | 18 | 46 |
This year my goal is again 60 for the year – 5 books a month, of those 5, 1 non-fiction.
I don’t set goals on my reading. i usually read a book every two or three days or sometimes like today i read one in a day. but i am retired (just watch my grandkids) and i am a speed reader. and my twins are now 34 years old. keep up the good work,
I have never set reading goals for myself. This year though I am aiming to read at least one really good book a month. I’m sure I could manage more if I apply myself but I will aim for at least one. I don’t do much fiction though so I am also hoping to expand my reading a bit.
Patty, I love that you have twins 🙂 Your reading habits sound heavenly – reminds me of the days before the babies!
Julia, I find if I don’t set reading goals, I spend too much time on the computer!