How I Read 100 Books In a Year

I read 100 books last year. How and why did I do this?

Every year I set out a personal development goal, a big over-arching goal for the year to make me a better person.

So why reading 100 books in a year? I love reading. A perfect Saturday night would be curled up on my couch reading a book and drinking coffee (ps. when did I get so old)? So when I was setting my personal development goal last year, I knew that I wanted to center it around reading.

The next step was determining what my reading goal should be for the year. I was already reading an average fo 1-2 books per month so I knew that I needed a stretch goal. I am always in awe when I hear about executives reading 200 or 300 books a year. If a busy Fortune 500 CEO can read 300 books in a year, I could surely read 100, right? 100 books in a year it was.

I’m not going to lie, reading 100 books in a given year was a challenge. However, I gained a ton of knowledge during this process and expanded my literary horizons (you can only ready so many professional development books so it forced me to check out some other genres). It’s a challenge I would whiole-heartedly recommend to anyone who likes to read or is looking to increase their knowledge.

Here are a few tips and suggestions for how to read 100 books in a year.

Goodreads

Goodreads is a must have for any. book lover. For one, you are able to set a reading challenge and easily track your progress quickly and easily. If you can also challenge friends and other people on the app if you are the competitive type. Goodreads is also a great way to explore other books to read. Goodreads will provide recommendations based on your prior reading and ratings. I’ve found several books that I otherwise would never have found,

Rotate Book Genres

I went to school for 20 of the first 25 years of my life. Reading a book solely for pleasure is still rather a novelty for me, kind of like being able to buy whatever cereal you want at the grocery store. It still feels strange to me. To help me get through my goal of reading 100 books, I rotated a fun book and then an educational one. This rotation helped ease my guilt of being unproductive and motivated me to push through some of the more dull books knowing that I would get to a fun one soon.

Use Your Phone

I have kids and a job so I’m not able to dedicate hours upon hours to uninterrupted reading time. To hit my goal, I had to fit reading in wherever I could. My local library offers the Libby app where you can borrow ebooks using your library card right on your phone or table. I was able to squeeze in a few minutes of reading here and there which adds up quickly. Check with our local library to see if they offer Libby or a similar app to download free books on your phone.

Keep a Book Near You

Similarly to the phone, I would keep a book near me at all times. When I had a few minutes of downtime while the kids were playing or watching TV, I could get some reading in. I try to read hard copy. books as much as possible because I feel less guilty about reading in front of them versus looking at my phone (#momguilt). Plus, there is nothing better than the smell of books (#nerd).

Make a Goal

If you are going to set a reading goal it is important for you to know how many books you need to read each week/month. If you want to read 100 books in a year, you will need to read roughly 2 books per week. Knowing this helped me pace my reading through the week to stay on top of my goal. If you use the Goodreads app and set up a challenge, it will do this for you automatically.

Take Breaks

Reading 100 books in a year was pretty aggressive. There were times where I just didn’t want to read anymore, and during those times I gave myself permission to take a step back. It’s not that serious and you don’t want a silly thing like a self-induced reading challenge take away your love of reading. Take a break and come back to it when you are ready.

Audiobooks

So I’m of the belief that audiobooks count as real books. You are still capturing and pondering information just as you would a hardcopy book. So go ahead and incorporate audiobooks into your routine. For me, I would listen to audiobooks anytime I was in the car or walking. I was able to squeeze in a few books this way and I really enjoyed them differently than hardcopy books. Audible is a great app to listen to audiobooks. Libby also offers audiobooks so I never had to pay for them!

How I Read 100 Books in a Year