A #goodreadance2021 Update!

I posted a couple weeks ago that I would be partaking in the #goodreadance2021 challenge. This is a challenge run by Shealea, of the blog Shut Up Shealea. The basics are that you set your own goals for cleaning up your Goodreads shelves, catching up on reviews, or whatever you feel like! I explain my goals and show the starting state of my Goodreads in my original post, which is here.

Apparently this challenge was motivating for me – I’ve already completed my goals! So I’m here to give an update on those, and set some new ones.

Completed Goals

So I had two goals for this challenge. They were to: 1.) figure out a new shelving system and 2.) clean out the books on my shelves. And I managed to complete both, woohoo!! I changed my “exclusive” shelves to include only Read, Currently Reading, Want to Read, and Pause shelves. I then changed my “tracking” shelves to include books that I own in some way (TBR shelves), books to borrow, and books I to buy. This simplifies my Goodreads shelves, and is a neat way of tracking exactly what I need. I also went through my overall “Want to Read” shelf, and cleaned out books that I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to read. You can see the before and after photo shelves here!

As you can see, the total number of books on my shelves actually decreased by quite a bit. I was pretty ruthless in taking books off my shelves. I need to focus on actually getting to the ones on there lol.

So overall I’d say this challenge was a success for me! But since there’s still a month and a half left, why not challenge myself further with new goals?

New Goals!

Now that I’ve completed what I want to in regards to Goodreads, I’m going to set some other “cleaning” goals.

1. Read and review the unread books on my NetGalley shelf
2. While unpacking my books after my move, unhaul physical books I no longer want
3. Complete original bonus goal of making sure my physical TBR shelf on Goodreads matches my actual physical books that are unread
4. Catalog my physical library of books (after goal #2) using BookBuddy app
5. Also on the BookBuddy app, create a system of tags so I can easily look up books in a certain category

I think anyone who uses NetGalley has the perpetual goal of catching up with all of their books on there haha. I’ve been pretty good about not requesting too many actually! Right now I have 9 books that need to be read and reviewed. So I think new goal #1 is pretty doable!

Goals #2-5 are all kind of connected. I’m finally doing my cross country move! So in roughly a week or so, if all goes well, I will be reunited with my books. This means I can tackle organizational things regarding my physical books. I did some unhauling before I packed them all up, but I think it’s time for round two. My physical library is just…a lot haha.

Also, this means I can double check my “TBR physical” shelf on Goodreads with my physical books. This way I can make sure my tracking is accurate!

A while ago I started cataloging my books using an app called BookBuddy. I really like it, and think it’s super useful. It just takes a while to input all the data, but I think doing it while I unpack could work really well! Even if I don’t do it while unpacking, I’ll be with my physical books so I can continue the cataloging.

And finally, I want to a tagging/category system for my books. I want categories like “bi main characters” or “Latine authors” or “found family books” so I can easily look for similar books. My friend has such a system on Goodreads, and it is amazing. I’d rather do it in my BookBuddy app, so I can keep my Goodreads shelves simple.

So there you have it, my #goodreadance2021 goals part 2! How are you doing on your goals? If you aren’t participating, I’m curious, do you catalog your physical books in any way?