SO LITTLE TIME #1 - A No ARCs Year

NUMBER ONE
A NO ARCS YEAR
I sat down to do some time scheduling last night because with switching to my school year work schedule today, and my current music biz ventures, I realized the book blog was in serious jeopardy. This little blog, and all the social media that goes along with it, has been a big part of my life for the last few years and I have made some close blogger and author friends. Plus, promoting good books and reading is a virtuous activity and everyone should be striving for more of that in their lives, and I don't want to lose that part of my life.
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One of the things on my mind even before I sat down to think last night was making time to practice my music, but I realized that the music is a huge thing for me right now and my mindset should be making time for everything else after practice, networking, and in March recording music and videos for my YouTube channel. So instead, I will be making time to blog and READ. *sighs*

In this new feature I will be exploring ways to make my life schedule more efficient so that I have more time to read and book blog. I will be asking you to give me advice in the comments and I will try them out. I would also love to have guest posters on this subject, too.

I had planned on this NO ARC YEAR in June when it was apparent my one ARC a month plan for this year was not working. Going to Netgalley and Edelweiss is like opening a bag of potato chips and trying to eat just one. Plus, I never know if I will get every one I request, so requesting a couple extra was always a must. Ha!

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HOW WILL THIS HELP?

One thing I figured out is that my blog posts are going to have to serve a double duty. Most of the books I want to buddy read are not ARCs, the read-a-longs I want to participate in are always classics, I have wanted to do that one Sci-Fi challenge for the last two years and my ARCs at those times were never reflecting that genre. I also want to do Stacee from ADVENTURES OF A BOOK JUNKIE's READING REWIND feature, which will spur me into re-reading and reviewing books I read before I started blogging. Plus, I have wanted to do themed months where all I read about is one subject matter. I also want to use my music related books for Monday Music Musings. This will also give me a chance to catch up with old ARCs and review books. I would love to zero out my backlist ARCs and start fresh in 2019. Can you imagine having a 100% ratio rating on Netgalley?! I would screenshot that in a New York minute. Also, not having to worry about timely reviews and cross-posting the reviews and social media posting will free up some time, too.

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HERE ARE SOME OF MY PLANS...

1. Reading more Discworld books and buddy reading with Annemieke from A DANCE WITH BOOKS.

2. Utilizing more audiobooks for multi-tasking, especially classics and tome length titles. I can play scales and finger exercises while listening.

3. Re-reading The Hobbit and the LOtR books.

4. Joining more theme based challenges and read-a-thons.

5. Re-reading the Dune series.

6. Cleaning out backlist ARCs and review books.

7. Having a month long diverse-a-thon for Black History Month.

8. Re-reading pre-blogging days titles and reviewing them using Stacee's Reading Rewind questions.

9. Re-visiting the first three Harry Potter titles via listening to the audiobooks while reading along from the illustrated editions.

10. AND FINALLY... getting to some of my old highly anticipateds, blogging buddy recommendations, and sequels!

SO LITTLE TIME...

Now, tell me your secrets, ideas, and recommendations. How do you make time for blogging and extra time for reading? Scheduling? Bullet journals? Using house cleaning shortcuts? I want to know them all!