Hello!

If you’ve been around my blog for a while now, you will almost certainly know that I’m a planner – I’ve been bullet journalling since 2017, I’m an absolute organisation freak and I am absolutely the kind of person that has lists coming out of their ears.

I have my own reading spreadsheet as well as a book bullet journal, a google sheets template, Storygraph, notes to track my pages, tbrs, content plans etc – I have a lot of bookish related lists! And one of those lists is what I’ve called ‘Reading Planning’ – where I make a note of my monthly tbrs, I have my 24 in 2024 listed here, I’ve got a note of my ‘priority’ tbr, all the books that are on my Kindle and less visually available in my library, but something I have made a note of is an idea I had for my 26 in 2026 list.

I had this idea at some point last year because I love finding parallels, symmetry, patterns etc – I loved when I realised that reading 24 books in 2024 would be reading 2 books a month (which I haven’t done, but it’s still really satisfying!), I like that my reading goal for this year is 52 books which equates to one a week, so when I realised that 2026 could be ‘The Alphabet Year’, where my 26 in 2026 list could be like a built in alphabet challenge was something that scratched my brain in a wonderful way.

I love the idea so much I was not prepared to let myself forget it! I’ve not gone as far as actually planning what books to use for each letter because the hope is my tbr will look vastly different by 2026, but I already know I don’t own any books starting with X so I’m probably going to have to do some shopping!

Then earlier this year, I rediscovered the foam book covers I made for my 23 in 2023 list and I still haven’t figured what to do with them. When I made my 24 in 2024 I deliberately didn’t let myself choose anything from my 2023 list (because if I hadn’t prioritised them in that year, it felt like cheating to include it again? It doesn’t make sense when I write it out) but attempting the same list again in 2025 sounds like a fun way to use the foam books again and actually try and get through reading those books!

So another list within my Reading Planning spreadsheet is a list of the books on my 23 in 2023, the ones that I either read in 2023 or have read since and some ideas for additional books I would like to add to the list to make it up to 25 if I don’t read them before the end of this year. Then when it comes to finishing the list at the end of the year, I think I’ll fill the gaps with my TBR jar because I think it’ll force me to read the books I otherwise would have ignored.

I really have taken my planning to another level to have my annual TBR’s planned for the next two years, but I genuinely mean it when I say it wasn’t intentional! I just had the ideas spontaneously and I know what my memory is like so I’m not risking forgetting them! These kinds of organic ideas are the ones I love the most – they feel so right and often feel like they’ve come out of nowhere, but when it works it works!

Have I out-Virgo’ed myself? Is this a Type A thing (I don’t know what that means)? I’m not ashamed, but I do appreciate it’s a tiny bit excessive.

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx