2018: Reading Goals

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I've been extremely slack in the reading department this year, and although I don't care about the numbers and the stats as much as I used to, I want to read a hell of a lot more in 2018. Next year I'm getting my mojo back, I'm gonna start reading more, reviewing more, and I truly want to rekindle my passion for reading.

I want to read at least 4 books a month next year, which is 48...but I decided to round that up to the more visually pleasing 50 books. I'm going to go for the 50 book challenge again next year, which I haven't completed since 2013, when I read 73 (I was going for 100 that year). In fact, I don't think I've ever completed a yearly book challenge without altering the number of books I want to read to make myself win; which isn't a good thing. So to complete a book challenge for the first time would be absolutely AMAZING!

 I just want to focus on reading in 2018, I don't wanna partake in any particular challenges; whether that be genre, page number or anything else of the sort - I just want the simple goal of reading more books, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, I'm getting back to basics.

Here's a list of some of the books that I want to read:
✧ Winter - Marissa Meyer
✧ Renegades - Marissa Meyer
✧ The Circle - Dave Eggers
✧ A Gathering Of Shadows - V.E. Schwab
✧ A Conjuring Of Light - V.E. Schwab
✧ A Court Of Thorns And Roses - Sarah J. Maas
 ✧ The Way Of Kings - Brandon Sanderson
✧ Words Of Radiance - Brandon Sanderson
✧ The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin

 What are your reading goals for 2018?

How I'm Going To Be More Productive

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So, I mentioned in my previous blog post that I wanted to be more productive in the new year, and I got to thinking, how was I going to achieve that? It's not just something that comes to you, and I know that it won't be easy by any means, but I hope to implement these few things into my life in the coming months to try and achieve a more productive life.

✧ Put my phone on do not disturb and close unnecessary tabs
So a lot of what I want to achieve actually involves being online, whether that be on my laptop or on my phone, and the beauty of my business, in particular, is that I can take it anywhere that my phone goes. However, I need to learn to know the difference between working and endless scrolling and messaging, as at the moment, I claim to be working when I'm not doing anything productive at all. I get distracted by the beeps on my phone and the boops of my laptop when I'm in the middle of doing something particularly meaty, and it literally makes me stop what I'm doing to check...it's like an addiction (that I'm most certainly not proud of) and I need to curb that. 

✧ Focus on one thing at a time
I have this habit of flitting between about a 5 different productive activities at a time, and because I'm doing that, I'm not really getting anything done. I could get more done if I tick things off one at a time instead of overwhelming myself with a billion and one activities at once. I'll also get each of them done well, rather than a half-assed version of each. 

✧ Keep a to-do list
I've found in the past, that if I've created a to-do list the night before, I'm always more productive in the morning - it means that I can wake up and start with a purpose straight away, rather than spending half of the morning wondering what I wanna do with my day. If I stay productive, then I should never run out of things to do as well, so there will always be a neverending list of things on my list.

✧ Get up earlier
A big struggle of mine at the moment is getting up early, and when I say early, I mean I can barely drag myself out of bed before 9am! However, recently I've been looking back over my old posts and I saw my old journaling post where I was getting up between 7:30 and 8am every day for a long period of time. I always, ALWAYS find that when I get up earlier, I get more done in a shorter period of time than when I get up later. It sounds like such a trivial and easy thing, getting up early, but for me personally, this is going to be the hardest thing to start getting into a routine with.

✧ Keep a Gratitude Log
I believe that gratitude is something that most people rarely celebrate; we take for granted the little things in life when those little things are what we need to fully appreciate. I want to start ending my day by writing 3 things that I'm grateful for - this will ultimately end my day on a happy note and help me appreciate the little things so I can fully respect the big things that come my way.

I'll probably be keeping you guys up to date with the ups and downs of my productivity journey through the up and coming year, as I think it'll be an interested topic to track, and good for me personally! How do you stay productive?

2018: Word Of The Year

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Why hello there, long time no speak fellow internet dwellers - it's me, Katie, if you don't remember, I know it's been a long time. Yeah, I'm sorry about that, but instead of focusing on the past and going over my excuses, I thought it best to look forward to and talk about 2018!

Two thousand and f*cking eighteen guys! Can we just that sink in for a second? It was only yesterday that I was partying the new year of 2017 in from...actually I think I went to sleep before midnight, so there goes that story.

I started creating a list of goals that I wanted to achieve next year, and I literally could not stop thinking about them - constantly mulling them over in my mind, fine tuning them, and then realising that goals really weren't my thing. It's all well and good having things you want to achieve, but if you can't do the steps that will get you there in the first place, then what good are those goals?

I've decided on creating a word to focus on for the year, in which all of my goals can be based around - my word for 2018 will be: PRODUCTIVE!

This year just passed me by due to the fact that I got distracted way too easily - most of my time was spent scrolling through social media, playing phone games and just generally not doing anything. I swear, I spent more time thinking about what needed to be done than actually doing anything productive - so productive I WILL be!