The new calendar year brings lots of hopeful intention and despite the fact that we are halfway through the first month, I'm desperately clinging to that hope. I truly miss having bookish interactions and the excitement of reading in general so I'm hoping that 2026 is the year where I can gently reintroduce reading into my daily life.

read with intention
My original goal was simply - read more -  but that seemed a bit too broad and stressful so we're rephrasing it to read with intention. Like everyone else, I have a never-ending tbr which feels more overwhelming than exciting most days. Instead of staring at the list without knowing where to start, I'm giving myself the goal to complete two books a month which averages out to a book every other week. This will hopefully give me the illusion of structure while allowing periods of break in between if I finish a book quickly.

get two book bingos
I found a list from the 52books challenge and created a bingo chart in my reading journal. I've been wanting to try a reading challenge of some sort and this one was the perfect combination of structure with the 52 prompts and personalization because I only picked 24. I don't think it'll necessarily be challenging to get two bingos through the year but I'm hoping it can be an option for a starting point if I ever fall into a slump and don't know what to pick up next.

use my reading journal consistently
Speaking of reading journals, I love journaling and really fell off of that habit in 2025. Both my reading and memory journals barely got any love and I could tell it was taking a toll of my mental health. I'm simplifying everything this year and taking it back to the basics. I want my reading journal to be my physical tracker and my go-to place when I finish a book instead of rushing to log it onto an app. I'm also trying to take a step away from Goodreads and am aiming to balance my digital tracking between Fable and Pagebound to see which one sticks better. Fable is more popular but I'm liking Pagebound's interface a bit more at the moment so we'll see - bottom line is, I want my physical journal to be the priority overall.

read at least 10 books on my physical tbr
I ended up making a spread in my reading journal of all the books I own physically that I haven't read yet and the number is quite staggering. I already have close to no shelf space so it's time to be really intentional with my physical shelves and either read the books I own or finally admit to myself that it's time to pass them on. I might do something like a random wheel generator to help start the process because just staring at the list makes it difficult to decide where to begin.

read 200/365 days
I originally saw this goal on Dylan Joseph's 2026 goals video and really like how he framed developing the habit of reading consistently. Instead of holding myself to a strict regimen of reading x amount of minutes every day, which I failed miserably at last year, I'm giving myself a more attainable goal. Sometimes I might not have the energy to read 15-30 minutes but if I pick up a book and read something, that checks off this goal and we'll tally all the days up at the end of the year to see if we hit the 200 day mark.

listen to five audiobooks
I listened to a grand total of one audiobook last year and not even in full. While I did dive a bit more into bookish podcasts, I do miss the anticipation of listening to a book on my daily commutes. I have a bunch of titles saved on Libby/Hoopla and want to challenge myself to actually pick up those titles - it also gives me an excuse to use my library's digital resources more.