Today I’m participating in Top Ten Tuesday, which was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week there is a new theme/topic, and participants choose ten books that fit it.
This week’s theme is Goals for 2026. I managed to find 10 bookish things I’d like to accomplish this year. I hope these are all doable, but we’ll see…
- Goodreads Challenge: Every year I always set my Goodreads Challenge to the same goal, 100 books. I’ve done the same again this year. I’ve managed to read more than 100 books for the last few years. So, hopefully the goal will be easy to meet.
- StoryGraph Pages Challenge: This will be my third year participating in this challenge, and it has been great for getting me in the habit of logging my daily reading into StoryGraph. So far, I’m keeping up with it, and there are only 11 more days to go.
- Instagram: I’ve slowly been trying to post more things on Instagram. I’d like to continue that trend in the new year. Maybe at least one post a week? I’m not really super obsessed with growing a huge following. I just have fun creating a post now and then and enjoy seeing all of the creative stuff happening on that app.
- Blog When It’s Fun: Last year, I made the goal of blogging more consistently. I did well for the first few months or so of the year. Then things took a nosedive again. Honestly, I haven’t had a ton of motivation to blog recently. So, I’m going to try to go back to basics and focus on only posting things I enjoy. There will likely be a heavy emphasis on reviews and less memes and wrap-ups because I’ve been finding them to be a bit of a chore recently. However, I’m not going to rule anything out in case I see a topic I really like. 🙂
- Empty My NetGalley Shelf: I want to empty my NetGalley shelf of all pre-2026 books by the end of the year. Ideally, I’d end the year with a completely empty shelf, but I know that is almost impossible. I’ve gotten better about not requesting tons of stuff. My problem now is all the widgets that publishers send. I get a little click happy and accept way too many of them.
- Unhaul Books: Last year, I hoped to unhaul 10-20 books, and I managed to get rid of even more than that number. Unfortunately, it hasn’t helped my hoard from continuing to explode in size, and I now have even more books than at the start of 2025. I even just added three new bookcases to accommodate them all. So, let’s bump this number up to 40 unhauls and hope for the best. lol.
- Buy Fewer Books: To say I’m out of space would be an understatement. I don’t want to go on a book buying ban because I’m never successful at them. However, I would like to be more mindful about what I purchase. I’m going to try to focus my purchases on favorite authors and sequels that I want to read. I’m not going to rule out purchasing debuts, but I will be checking the library for availability before deciding whether to purchase.
- Read More Series: I want to complete or catch up on as many series as possible this year. While looking at my shelves, I see SO MANY completed series that I was dying to read when they came out. I just haven’t gotten to them. Hopefully, that will change this year. I’m not going to put a strict number on this goal, but I’d love to at least read 10 of them.
- Read Subscription Box Books: I did so much better at reading my book box subscriptions last year. There’s still so many I need to get to, though. So, this goal will carry over, and I hope to read as many as I can. I did actually cancel two of my book boxes at the start of January. Hopefully it will help me get through the backlog…
- Comic Books: Last year, I was successful at my goal to stop buying comics. Thank goodness. Now I really need to focus on reading the backlog and maybe getting rid of some of the ones I don’t think I’ll read again. I have a huge collection, and it was a major pain in the butt to move. I just don’t see myself lugging all of them around in the future if we need to move again. So, hopefully I can work on culling the collection this year.
There you have it! My bookish goals for 2026. What are you hoping to accomplish? Let me know down in the comments!
what a great list! i’m also trying to post more on instagram after being super inactive and also focus on making posts bc its fun and ignore the stats.
Thanks! I’m trying to keep things from feeling like a chore by only posting when I feel like it. Consistency was the goal last year, and it completely killed my desire to blog. So, I’m hoping this new approach will increase my enjoyment this year.
I hope you are successful at whatever goals you set for yourself this year! 🙂
I so rarely post on my Instagram account. Good for you for trying to be more active.
Thanks! I’m enjoying it so far, but I’ll probably abandon it as soon as it feels like a chore. lol.
Getting that ARC backlog down would be amazing for me, too!
Fingers crossed that we both make some progress on it this year!
I have done the Storygraph pages challenges every year! It’s always a fun way to tick off a challenge after the first month of the year. I have seen you posting more in Instagram! 🙂 It’s like a whole different world over there. Three new bookshelves is definitely the way to go. haha! Good luck on all of these, they all seem doable!!
I also really love the Storygraph challenge. It is a great start to the year that isn’t super hard to achieve. I’m working on spending more time on Instagram. I just don’t really take great pictures. So, coming up with ideas is not always the easiest.
Agreed! It’s a nice challenge. Honestly, don’t worry too much about what the photos look like! Right now, my best post is a messy library shot I took in 2 seconds, 2 weeks ago. I was asking about how ppl organize and it somehow took off. It’s not even a great photo! Just have fun and that’s all that matters!! ☺️ Interacting with authors has been the best part.
Good luck on all your goals!
Thank you!
Oh the dreaded Netgalley shelf, I see so many bloggers talk about it this week. Furthermore, Instagram is a hard game to play, I have also a goal on my list related to that platform.
My TTT: https://laurieisreading.com/2026/01/20/top-ten-tuesday-bookish-goals-for-2026/
Yeah. I’ve still got stuff from 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 on my NetGalley shelf. lol. At times, it feels like that shelf is a black hole where some of my most anticipated books go to die.
As for Instagram, I don’t take it too seriously. I gave up on growing the account a long time ago and mostly just use it for fun posts I enjoy and interacting with bookish people.
These seem like achievable goals
Thanks for sharing your #TTT and good luck
Thank you!
My shelves are out of control, too! They definitely need some unhauling and reorganizing this year. Good luck to both of us 🙂
Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Good luck! 😊
I’m hoping to start posting more on Instagram too this year. I’ve never been very active, but I’m going to change its look a bit and post once every two weeks at least. I hope you achieve all your goals 😊.
If you’d like to visit, here’s my TTT: https://thebooklorefairyreads.wordpress.com/2026/01/20/top-ten-tuesday-goals-for-2026/
I haven’t been super active on Insta either until recently, but I’m enjoying it so far. It’s good that you are going in with a plan. I hope you are successful at all of your goals this year, too!
I think posting things that you enjoy is a great way to try to get back into blogging. I didn’t have it on my own list but I’m with you on the Instagram thing! I might say this every year and only achieve marginal success, but at least we try, lol. I need to do a proper clean up of my shelves and unhaul some titles from 2025 as well. Good luck with all these goals and hope you have fun in the process of achieving them! 🤭
Thanks, Dini! I think a lot of my issue has been repetitiveness. I was doing the same memes every week, and it just got dull. So, I’m going to do my best to focus on some new stuff this year and try to just keep things a bit more spontaneous and fun.
I plan on tracking with StoryGraph, too. And, I hope to make more time writing reviews to post again.
What does it mean to unhaul books?
Good question! It just means to get rid of books off of my shelves.