Alli the Book Giraffe

Hello readers! It’s a new year and that means many people have made their reading goals by now. So, I thought I’d give you guys some tips and tricks on how to smash that goal to finish more series!

I made a goal like this in 2019. I am not even kidding, I hadn’t finished even 10 series in my life before 2019, which is actually shocking. BUT, I did manage to finish 13 in 2019! I have now completed nearly 50 series in my time as a reader. And, I thought I could let you guys know exactly how I finished 13 series in one year!

I’ll even give you some of the really strict rules I had for myself that year at the end of this post, but those are 100% optional! I took that challenge a little too serious, but it was worth it.

Step 1: Gather All Your Series

First, you are going to go through all your books on Goodreads (or wherever you have them) and make a list of all the series you’ve ever started. And easy way to do this will be to make a shelf on Goodreads. Mine is called First in the series.

After you get that list, go through and remove all the series you don’t actually want to finish AND series that are not finished or won’t be within a year.

You can do this on paper or in a Google Sheet. It’s really up to your preferences. I have done both, but used paper in 2019.

Can you guys believe that I have started 142 series in my life? That seems like a fake number, doesn’t it? I have no intention of finishing most of those.

Step 2: Make a List

Now that you have the list, write next to each series how many books you have left to finish the series.

Step 3: Rearrange the List

Now rearrange your entire list from the least amount of books left in the series to the most. To the right is my current list. Honestly, in 2024 I took out series that I had a lot of books left as the goal is to start small.

Were you shocked with how many series you had that only had one or two books left to read before you finished it? I am always surprised at that when I make one of these lists.

You know what I realized in 2019 was how many series I thought I finished that the author had added onto after. One on here is the Night Huntress series. I thought it was done before 2019, and then I thought I finished it again in 2019, and the author has now added more books to the series.

I also realized how many books were in series that either weren’t before or I didn’t notice that they were. Not everything needs to be a series!

Step 4: READ READ READ

This step is the most important and easy! Start reading from the top of your list. Not only will you finish a ton of series quickly, it will make you get a sense of accomplishment that will push you to keep going!

Imagine you have 5 series with one or two books left and you finish all 5 within the first 3 or 4 months of 2024. It will really make you want to keep going knowing how well you did so far.

Bonus Step 1: Monthly Goal

One easy extra goal to help you get through these series is to make a goal for how many books you want to read every month. Each month, if you set a goal to read 2 or 3 books in a series, you are going to make a big dent in those series, even if the series you are reading from are ones that you are farther from finishing.

Bonus Step 2: Keep Up On Series Your Starting

If you make a list keeping track of the series you are starting, you are probably going to think twice before adding too many new ones to the list.

I have shelves on Goodreads for every year from 2021 to 2024 of series I started in that year. That is honestly what has made me want to do this project again, even if I’m not doing it quite as seriously.

Bonus Step 3: Series Ban

One way to really get those series done is to ban or limit how many series you are starting within the same year.

At the time, I had so many series to choose from that I planned on finishing, so this wasn’t too hard.

This project also caused me to stay away from series in 2020! I think like 70% or more of my reading in 2020 was stand alones because I was tired of series. And, I think now it has become more balanced.

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This post was created by Allison Wolfe for www.allithebookgiraffe.com and is not permitted to be posted anywhere else.

Where to find me: https://linktr.ee/Allithebookgiraffe

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