I challenged myself to read a book every week in 2024 – here’s what I’ve learnt:
This year I aimed to read a book a week, setting my Goodreads goal at 52 books. I wasn’t too worried about this challenge. In previous years I’ve gone over that goal many times, however, since starting university that number has fallen. Yet I remained confident and I thought this would be an easy challenge. I really enjoy reading and wanted to dedicate more time to it this year. While I did achieve this goal (technically exceeded – reading 54 books in the year) it wasn’t as easy to reach my goal as I thought it might be.
While my target for the year was 52 books, I wanted to try and stick to the aim of one book a week. Above anything else I wanted to be consistently reading, which is something I’ve struggled with before. I’d normally go from reading one book a month and then five in a week. This was a real problem when I set off on this challenge. It was hard to find time to read every day. There were some weeks during this year where I didn’t even have time to think about reading. There were many times this year where I really thought I wasn’t going to get to 52 books. However, a few things saved me from this fate.
I study English so many of my yearly books were just texts I had to go in my degree. In total about 13 books of the 54 books I read were set texts for university. Which is quite a large chunk of my yearly wrap up. It could be argued that if I didn’t have such long reading for my course, I’d be able to read other books more but I think that time would be replaced with other university work. So, timekeeping and planning is really important when trying to read more. Also, just being intentional about your reading, deciding to pick up a book instead of your phone for ten minutes can go a long way. This is something I still struggle with.
… just being intentional about your reading, deciding to pick up a book instead of your phone for ten minutes can go a long way.
My main saving grace for this challenge were picking out short and easy reads. For me this took form in many bad romance books. I went away for 10 days and did nothing but sit by the beach/pool and read. In those 10 days I read 14 books. Over a 1/5 of my yearly goal in less than a fortnight. Without that week I would’ve really struggled to make it to the end of the challenge. The books I chose to read that week were easy and short romances. They didn’t require much thought. I think if you stuck to heavy classics this challenge would be near impossible. I think if you were planning on doing something like this, genre and book length is a good thing to keep in mind. If you plan on reading long, heavy books, I would set the goal a lot lower.
Overall, I think reading a book a week is an achievable goal. I can go on and on about how busy I’ve been but if I spent even half of my phone screen time reading, I’d be able to double the number of books I read a year. As I go into next year, I plan to upkeep this goal, and go even further than I did this year. I think I’ve learnt a lot about my reading habits and how to stay motivated to read when scrolling on social media can be so addictive.
While sometimes stressful I do believe setting a goal can be beneficial in helping you stay motivated as long as you don’t get too hung up on it. Especially on platforms like Goodreads where you can keep track of your friends reading too. If you are someone who always says they want to read more, setting a challenge like this can help you get motivated in the beginning.
While sometimes stressful I do believe setting a goal can be beneficial in helping you stay motivated as long as you don’t get too hung up on it.
I do think this challenge is possible for everyone, no matter how slow or little you currently read. Making intentional time to read can go a long way. Also picking out books you know you’ll enjoy will help. Planning ahead and making reading a habit like you would do with other things such as studying, going to the gym and hobbies. However, try to be realistic, if you’ve never picked up a book for pleasure before don’t expect to suddenly be able to read one every week. This past year has been a great reminder to me why I love reading so much, and I want to encourage you to set your reading challenge for 2025.
