30 Jan 2020 by 2 Comments

{goals} How to read more in 2020

If you’ve been reading around here or follow me on Instagram, you’ll know I’m a big reader. (I even started a bookstagram account late last year – marciareadsalot).

I read 97 books in 2016, 120 books in 2017, 112 books in 2018 and I finished on 108 books last year.

I hover around the 100 books a year mark consistently, and thought I’d share 5 ways that we can all read more. It’s not like I do nothing but read (I’m a full-time employee, parent to twins, wife, friend and coach/ speaker/ workshop facilitator) but I do prioritise my reading.

  1. Have a compelling to-read list

If you only have boring books on your list, you’ll be less inclined to pick up a book and read. Therefore, decide what you like to read and add some fun books (for you) to your list.

If you can’t wait to read a book, there’s a very high possibility you’ll read faster, and thus read more books.

Tip – I create a To read – x month collection within my Kindle so that I always have a great list of books to pick from. If I own the physical copy, I download the sample, and leave that in the collection so I remember what I wanted to read.

2. Stop reading books you hate

This ties into number 1 above. If you are not enjoying a book, stop wasting your reading time and pick up a book you want to read instead.

Did you know that you don’t have to finish every book you start? Please start freely abandoning books. I abandoned 7 books this year (yay!) – the faster I abandon, the more I can read 🙂

3. Always keep a book with you

Even if you don’t keep a physical book with you, have an audio or Kindle book on your phone. I like to keep a non-fiction book on my phone so I can read a short piece when I have a few moments. Things that work very well are essay-type books, or 100 days to …… or 365 days of …………..-type books.

4. First read, then scroll

I realised that I was grabbing my phone in the mornings instead of my book, so a couple of mornings I didn’t switch on the wifi for a whole hour while I read instead. I nearly finished my book just from first reading instead of scrolling.

If you’re having trouble focusing, set a timer for 20 minutes and just start reading. 20 minutes is the perfect time for a non-fiction read, and I guarantee that if you give a work of fiction 20 minutes, you’ll get into it enough to either continue or abandon.

I also want to point out my blog post from a few years ago where I recognised that with the 4 – 5 hours of phone time I have a day, I could easily read a non-fiction book once a week. See why you and I are not reading more books.

5. Join a book club

Most of the population are obligers and as Gretchen Rubin says, if you’re an obliger and you want to read more books, join a book club. A friend told me on instagram that she had a terrible reading year (14 books). She is an obliger so I suggested a book club. She is in a book club but they each read a different book. As a Four Tendencies facilitator, I’d suggest she join a book club where they all read the same book. My own book club reads the same book and we are mostly Obligers, with some Questioners, one Rebel and me, the Upholder, and this works very well for the Obligers.

Joining a book club is one way to read more and it’s a fantastic way to also build intentional friendships.

Are you reading more or less than you were a few years ago? How do you make sure you’re reading a lot?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Decluttering, Four Tendencies, Freebies, Goals, Intentional living, Konmari, Mindset, Personal, Planning, Reading, Social Media, Time management Tagged With: , , , ,
6 Feb 2019 by 2 Comments

{reading} How I track my reading and January books read


So let’s talk about book tracking.

This is a big deal in the bookstagram world, and if you know me at all, you know I love tracking anything and everything. I learned since reading The Four Tendencies that upholders do well with monitoring, which is really what tracking is for me.

I first started tracking my reading straight after my last matric exam. For those outside of South Africa, it’s your last school year. That day was on 18 November and on that very day after my Biology exam, I went to the library, took out all the books I could and started tracking from that day nearly 27 years ago.

At some point once I’d started working, I started keeping an Excel sheet.

Fast forward to when I discovered Goodreads, and little by little but only back to 1998, I entered most of that notebook into Goodreads.

Well, how do I currently track my reading?

I track in 3 ways:

Goodreads (if Goodreads ever goes away, I don’t know what I’d do)

I use Goodreads for recording books I’ve read and to check when I’m at the library or bookshop whether I’ve read a certain book before borrowing or buying it. After thousands of books read, I can’t keep it all straight in my head 🙂

There’s an app which I use for on-the-go tracking, but I write reviews at my laptop as I need a proper keyboard.

Excel spreadsheet

I track my monthly goals on an excel spreadsheet. In the past I’ve done an exercise at the end of the year to see how many fiction vs non-fiction reads I had, and other such interesting stats, which took me hours. Hours of pleasure, but hours nonetheless. Then I got clever. So since 2017, as part of my monthly goals, I also track the numbers of non-fiction vs fiction, physical/ kindle/ audible books and so on. It’s so much easier to enter the totals in less than a minute every month and my Excel sheet is set up to total, and do % of goal, etc. so I have the annual totals quickly too.

Bullet journal

This year I started writing down the month’s books in a special notebook I call my book bullet journal. I also have notes at the back of books I want our book club to read, books I want to read on Audible, books I need to borrow through Overdrive, and so on.

It’s really lovely to have a beautiful, fun notebook, and to physically write down books I’m reading again, especially since I haven’t done so for about 15 years, if not longer.

How do you track your reading?

And as for the books I read in January…

I finished 10 books – 5 of them during the first week while I was on holiday 🙂

My final tally is 8 fiction; 2 non-fiction with 5 physical books, 1 audible and 4 Kindle versions.

Favourite reads of this month: The Friend – Dorothy Koomson (my first 5* read of the year!) and The Sunshine Sisters – Jane Green

What were your favourite reads in January?

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , , , ,
10 Jan 2019 by 7 Comments

{reading} Why I read fewer books in 2018 than in 2017

In 2017 I read 120 books. You can read how here (that’s one of the most popular posts on the blog, by the way).

Last year I passed 100, didn’t hit 120 but ended up on 112.

Let me tell you why:

  1. I read longer, more challenging books

One of my reading goals for 2018 was to read books that would stretch me, some more literary fiction. I specifically set a really low Goodreads goal of 80 books. This means I still needed to be reading almost two books a week, so I had to prioritise reading but I could read longer books during a month and not choose ones I’d finish within 4 days instead of say, 6.

2. I worked from home more

I listen to audible books on the way to work. A standard non-fiction read is about 8 hours long and a standard fiction read is about 10 – 11 hours long, so let’s average out at 9 hours.

Given these stats, and my commute being about 45 minutes, in 2017, I’d get through a long audio book in 3 weeks, but on average this year it was taking me 4 weeks because for many weeks, I’d work from home two days.

(no complaints; I’d gladly sacrifice books for focussed deep work time)

3. my reading slump

I won’t go into the whole thing here again but when you’re in a reading slump, you’d rather do other things than read, so I organised, took jacaranda photo walks and had other kinds of fun 🙂

It was really helpful analysing why I read less this year. The bottom line is I’m an upholder and it’s still best for me to make my own rules about reading (and everything else) and uphold those rules.

Read more about my reading rules here, and on re-reading them now, it’s so obvious the commenters are not upholders 😉

How did your reading life compare from 2017 to 2018? Have you noticed any trends?

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , ,
3 Oct 2018 by 2 Comments

On setting reading goals and books read in September

Good news!

I reached my goal of 72 in August, and this month, I reached my Goodreads goal of 80 books.

You may ask yourself why I set such a “low goal” if I read 120 books last year.

My purpose for my reading life this year was to read deeper and sometimes longer books as well as fun books. I saw a tendency in my reading life last year to skip over some books if they were over 400 pages and I wouldn’t be able to finish them if the month had only a few days left. This year, I wanted to create space to read longer books than I had been reading.

It’s working beautifully because I am reading longer books and I’m getting through books I’ve had on my Kindle for a couple of years.

I’ve also surpassed my non-fiction reading goal which was 24 for the year; I’ve read 29 as at the end of September.

I had an audible goal too of 12 books for the year; I’ve read 16. I find that two a month is my comfort number.

Do you set reading goals?

Do you find that it enhances your reading life, or do you feel that it diminishes it?

And now onto my books read during September.

I really loved both non-fiction books I read: Hello Mornings by Kat Lee, and Grace not Perfection by Emily Ley.

I re-read Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty, and again LOVED it!

If you’re a Gretchen Rubin Four Tendencies fan, tell me if you agree with my take on the characters:

Erica and Oliver – both Upholders, one leans to Questioner and one to Obliger

Vid – Obliger

Tiffany – Rebel

Clementine – Questioner

Sam – Obliger

Just some fun 🙂

Other mentions:

If you can, get Maeve Binchy’s book on Audible for all the beautiful Irish accents.

I am in the minority as I did not love Joshilyn Jackson’s The Almost Sisters, BUT it was a great book club discussion, and that I always love.

I’m reading Off the Clock (35% through – will report back next month) and that rounds up all the books I’d set aside to read in September.

What were some of your notable mentions or favourite books read this month?

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , ,
6 Sep 2018 by 4 Comments

What makes a good memoir?

Bryant Park, New York City

When people tell me they don’t like to read non-fiction, I get what they mean with business-y or other types of non-fiction.

But I do feel like there’s a beautiful segment of non-fiction that is very overlooked, and that is the memoir.

3 reasons to try a memoir

  1. A good memoir reads like a story, especially if told well, and if you generally read only fiction, this is an easy way to access a genre you usually don’t read in a fun way.
  2. Good memoirs usually have an interesting story and you don’t need to know anything about the author’s life to enjoy it.
  3. If you don’t have a lot of time, get a book on audible, preferably read by the author.

5 favourite memoirs I heartily recommend, especially if you listen on audio

  1. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother – Amy Chua
  2. Stories I only tell my friends – Rob Lowe (you don’t need to be a fan – I wasn’t!)
  3. Born a Crime – Trevor Noah

Then there’s a subgenre of memoir that I love – it’s one where there’s a project for a certain length of time – and the author then writes a book about it.

3 of my favourite project memoirs are:

The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin (I’ve read this one twice and enjoyed it even more 6 years later)

The Year of Living Danishly – Helen Russell

Year of No Sugar – Eve O Schaub

Do you read memoir? What were some of your favourites?

And now, onto my reads for August.

I decided to only read books I wanted to seeing as it was my birthday month and my word of the year is FUN, and it was indeed a lovely, lovely reading month.

Interestingly, when I took photos for Instagram on Tuesday, I noticed that I read 5 non-fiction and only 4 fiction. I have to give a shout-out to The Year of Less, which is exactly the kind of project-based memoir I love. Those 5 non-fiction reads pushed me over my non-fiction reading goal for the year, which was 24. I’ve now read 27 non-fiction this year.

I’m still thinking through all the insights but I will add that I had $55 worth of stuff in a shopping cart, and after finishing this book, I clicked the X and told myself I don’t actually NEED any of those things. YAY Cait Flanders 🙂

My favourite fiction read was The Good House by Ann Leary. I did ask in the book club if people were interested, and there was no reply, so I read it on my own. And now I’m sorry I didn’t push a bit more because this would have made an excellent book club read. So many things to discuss.

What were some great books you read in August?

Filed Under: Goals, Personal, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , , ,
8 Aug 2018 by 2 Comments

The kind of books I love to read

I’ve only read one book in this pic so far and didn’t really love it 😮

I mentioned in this post a few months ago that it’s quite life-changing when you know the types of books that don’t work for you; you can skip right over certain books and know they’re not for you even though many other people might love them!

In the same way that you should now what you don’t want to read – here’s my list – you should also know what you do want to read, so that others start to know your style and won’t miss the mark buying you books.

Funny story – last year and this year for my birthday, two different friends bought me books I’d already read and loved. They were quite disappointed that I’d read the books but I was thrilled because they got me!

I’m reading The Ensemble in this pic

So what do I love?

  1. A hopeful tone (a serious title can have either a depressing or hopeful tone) even if serious subject matter (e.g. Still Alice)
  2. Good relationship dynamics (anything Joanna Trollope)
  3. Project-based memoir
  4. Memoir that is not fan memoir (Lab Girl)
  5. Strong protagonists (there’s at least one in each of Liane Moriarty’s books)
  6. Non-fiction that is solid in concepts but still practical (I know how she does it)
  7. Contemporary fiction that is not soppy (The Ensemble)
  8. Most Irish fiction (Roisin Meaney – but here are my favourite authors)

Do tell – what kind of books do you love to read?

An aside – I was chatting to Dion about a book that sounds like the type of thing I would like, but then I said, “it does say the author was a winner of a Man Booker Prize so probably not”. You see, I also have the dubious honour of not liking Book Prize books or enjoying any Academy award-winning movies, except one (Crash) 🙂

And if you’re interested, here are the books I read in July.

Fiction/ Non-fiction

8/3

Physical/ Audible/ Kindle

3/1/7

It was a great reading month – I only had two books rated 3 stars. The rest were 4s and 4.5 stars.

For full details, friend me on Goodreads

What was the best book you read recently?

Filed Under: 31 days of enough time, Goals, Intentional living, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: ,
4 Jul 2018 by 8 Comments

Books I read in June, the best book so far this year and one I don’t want to tell you about

In May I read 7 books and last month I read 8.

But best of all, I read two fabulous books.

Have I mentioned before that I consciously set my goal lower than last year? I wanted to feel like it was more fun – in other words, not feel like I need to get stuck into the next book 5 minutes after finishing the last one and also read longer books without concerning myself that it was taking days and days to read.

Here are the 8 books I finished:

Fiction/ Non-fiction: 6/2

Physical/ Audible/ Kindle: 0 (how is this possible? I don’t know either!)/ 3/5

Two books received 5* from me on Goodreads:

  1. Three wishes by Liane Moriarty. This is my second reading of the book – this time I listened to it on Audible and LOVED it even more. Highly recommend especially if you have multiples but certainly not necessary.

2. The Ensemble – Aja Gabel

I certainly don’t want to gush and put you off the book but do yourself a favour and get this one. And then sink into it over a weekend with a day or so on either side. This book drew me in and would not let me go. I didn’t even want to leave my couch the entire weekend. It is utterly wonderful and the best book I’ve read thus far this year. I actually can’t believe this is her debut novel.

The Ensemble

And then a book I read while Dion was driving us back from our holiday in the Drakensberg… that I almost don’t want to tell you about (insert “shocked face” emoji here)

The life changing magic of not giving a f**k – Sarah Knight

I bought it on Amazon sale because I was intrigued enough but not willing to spend “proper book money” on it.

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k: How to stop spending time you don't have doing things you don't want to do with people you don't like (A No F*cks Given Guide) by [Knight, Sarah]

Here’s what I wrote on Goodreads:

I thought the actual concepts were really good. She gave good examples of the four areas – things, work (this section alone is worth the read!), friends, acquaintances and strangers, and family.

This book is going to be really, really useful for all obligers (on Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework).

However, my rating is lower due to the overuse of the f-word.

I didn’t find this book to be making fun of Marie Kondo’s book at all. The author and I are both huge fans of Marie’s method and her overall question, does this spark joy?

So, definitely if you’re an obliger and you don’t mind excessive use of the f-word, get it. It will empower you and help you to work with those inner vs outer expectations.

Now tell me, what was the best fiction and non-fiction you read this month? And seeing as we’re half way through the year, dare I ask – are you half way through your reading goal?

PS I first found out about The Ensemble on Modern Mrs Darcy’s Summer Reading Guide and it is the first of three books that I want to read this “summer” (it’s winter in South Africa ;)) I want to read 8 books overall but 3 of those before the end of August.

Here is my winter fun list if you’d like to take a look.

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , ,
7 Jun 2018 by 12 Comments

What are your nos with books

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I only read 7 books in May. That feels like a little and it is the least in any one month I’ve read for a long while. Still, I’ve now read 45 for the year, which is an average of 9 a month, and is not shabby at all.

Here’s the haul:

 

Non-fiction: Fiction 2:5

Physical: Audible: Kindle 3:1:3

Notable reads

  • Both non-fiction (I probably should write about those)
  • Something in common – Roisin Meaney

Something in common was a gorgeous, gorgeous book and I devoured it in a day and a bit. It’s very typically Irish fiction (not much is rosy and “perfect”, but is all very real, with a sense of hope and warmth woven through the pages).

If you haven’t yet tried the author, I always recommend The Daisy Picker but this one will be my new favourite to recommend. In fact, get whichever you like – I love them all 🙂

 

Book club mention

We read Behold the Dreamers in book club and I rated it 4 on Goodreads, but that’s a 3.75 pushed up to a 4. I wanted to like this book more than I actually did.

Have you read it? What did you think?

And now for the bookish discussion:

Anne Bogel interviewed Laura Vanderkam on the What should I read next podcast early this year.

It’s one of my favourite interviews primarily because of how well Laura knows the type of books that work for her and those that don’t.

I was so impressed by her self-awareness that I’ve started keeping track of the type of things that I don’t want to read about:

  • Abuse of children
  • Slavery
  • Suffering
  • People in mental hospitals
  • Historical fiction, esp. war settings.
  • Most blog to book titles (blogs and books are very different writing styles and most bloggers should not be writing books)
  • Fan memoir (where you can only follow along and appreciate the book if you’re a fan of what that person has done)
  • Most multi-generational books (exceptions are Maeve Binchy novels like Tara Road)
  • Weak protagonists – the person doesn’t have to be likeable, but they need to have something interesting – I need to care about them in some way)
  • Too much weirdness (Where’d you go, Bernadette and one of this month’s reads, The Time of my Life)
  • Too many viewpoints/ characters (I feel like I’m unable to care about them all…)
  • Titles described as “laugh-out-loud romantic fiction” (I usually don’t find them funny at all, and there’s usually gratuitous s*x
  • Nicholas Sparks 😉
  • Young Adult fiction (I can manage about 1 a year)

As Anne Bogel says, some books are not bad; they’re just not for you.

So tell me, what did you read in May? And what do you not want to read?

Filed Under: Goals, Intentional living, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , ,
10 May 2018 by 6 Comments

In April I realised how I prefer to consume my books

Let’s get all the book stats out of the way because there’s something I want to discuss with you.

I had a good reading month in terms of number of books read, but only a few really good ones.

Books read in April

Books read: 10

Non-fiction/ fiction: 3/7

Physical/ Kindle/ Audible *: 4/4/2

*there’s a little story about the one Audible book

I listened to most of Chasing Slow on Audible but I really wasn’t enjoying it at all and I realized that the author might be coming across more whiny due to the narration. So I switched to the Kindle version (I bought the Kindle version on sale first and added $2,99 for the Audible narration) and I actually enjoyed the last 30% much more.

As at end April, I’d read 38 books for the year. My challenge is 80 books.

The little teashop of lost and found – Trisha Ashley

Now let’s talk about how I prefer to read my books.

I have a general rule where I read non-fiction Monday – Thursday, and then I read fiction Friday to Sunday. This is purely for practical purposes so that I actually get enough sleep for work. I have zero discipline when it comes to putting down a book so this is my Upholder way of making sure my life works for me.

So this month, I read two fiction books outside of my rules, in other words, during the week.

The reason is also very interesting to me – I didn’t have any non-fiction books that were calling to me on my physical bookshelf, and I didn’t feel like reading on the Kindle either. Remember one of the reasons I read a lot is that I always have a lot of good books to read. This is why I said in this Instagram post I probably need to declutter this bookshelf because if I don’t feel like reading them, perhaps they should go to someone else.

This is the story of a happy marriage – Ann Patchett

I then picked up fiction because I wanted to read those, but because I can only read a bit before bed every night, it took me probably 5- 6 days to finish a book I usually finish in 2 – 3 days.

And, here’s the thing, when I take that long to read a work of fiction, I just don’t feel like I can immerse myself fully in the story and fully enjoy it.

I don’t mind taking weeks to finish non-fiction because I like thinking through what I’m learning, but I want to dive into fiction and be done with it.

Isn’t that interesting?!

Does whether you read a book over a shorter time affect your enjoyment of that book? Do you have book rules for yourself? (I do realise this is a very “upholder” thing to do) 

So that’s what I learned this month:

  • I need to stick to my rules for the week
  • I need to declutter that bookshelf and have compelling non-fiction (it’s one of my 18 in 2018 goals actually)
  • I need to dive into fiction first thing on a Friday night to be sure I finish by Sunday afternoon 🙂

Did you learn anything new about your reading life this month?

Filed Under: Decluttering, Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Reading, Time management Tagged With: , ,
5 Mar 2018 by 2 Comments

The book that forever changed how I view nature

 

Books I read in February 2018

February was not the best reading month for me (I read 8 books vs 11 in January) and I know exactly why:

I read 4 fiction and 4 non-fiction.

As much as I enjoy learning from the non-fiction, it does mean that I take longer to read and finish those books.

One of them had chapters that would be 18 minutes long (according to my Kindle) and then it’d take much longer to actually finish. The Kindle is usually really good about estimating my reading speed so this was a bit frustrating for me.

Still, we have a long weekend at the end of this month, which means an extra book for me 🙂

I had two 5* books this month and the first one is the book that has absolutely changed how I look at nature and seasons.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

I bought this book on an audible sale late last year after hearing a bit about it on the internet.

I honestly loved this book and can’t wait for a re-read, or re-listen. I have studied science but not botany so the study of plants is not really my thing, and yet she explains things so that everyone gets it.

I loved the way it was structured with short chapters on the science and then longer chapters on the memoir part of it all.

It really was a great read. I bookmarked huge sections on autumn  and falling leaves, which I will definitely listen to soon as the southern hemisphere is now in autumn!

Here are some favourite quotes:

“Looking up, you notice that the leaves at the top of any tree are smaller, on average, than the leaves at the bottom. This allows sunlight to be caught near the base whenever the wind blows and parts the upper branches.”

“My strongest memory of our garden is not how it smelled, or even looked, but how it sounded.”

“It takes a long time to turn into what you’re supposed to be.”

“The very attributes that rendered me a nuisance to all of my previous teachers—my inability to let things go coupled with my tendency to overdo everything—were exactly what my science professors liked to see.”

“The very attributes that rendered me a nuisance to all of my previous teachers—my inability to let things go coupled with my tendency to overdo everything—were exactly what my science professors liked to see.”

As for my favourite fiction book of the month, I again loved reading What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty.

This was the very first Liane Moriarty book I read and I’ve caught up with all of them so I’ve started re-reading. At first I read the Kindle version and since I have an older Kindle, I didn’t pick up all the nuances in formatting, which added to my enjoyment of the book this time around.

I thought a lot more about this book reading it this time around, probably because 10 years ago I myself was going through infertility and didn’t know if I’d ever have children. I felt closer to Alice this time because the concept of losing 10 years of my life is rather…frightening!

One of my favourite quotes:

“Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It’s light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you’ve hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you’ve seen the worst and the best– well, that sort of love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.”

How was your reading month?

What was your favourite book – fiction, non-fiction or both?

PS Here’s how the rest of my month went.



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