Category: Notes

I’m so excited to finally do an update on Project TBR Zero! I’ve spent the entire month of January counting the days to write this post. I want to look back and see my progress. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here is the first post where I introduced the challenge. My quest is to finish every single book I own. So welcome back to the second quarter update of Project TBR Zero. The Second Quarter October For a quick recap of where my reading was standing in September, I had 81 books in my TBR. As I said at the end of the last post, I was in a reading slump. And I carried that feeling until the new year. It didn’t stop me from reading, but I wasn’t overly excited about what I was reading. Not even a reread of Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and …

Last week, I posted about all the 49 books I read and how my reading year went. Although I kept out my rating for all those books to now do a little world cup/tournament bracket/let’s find my favourite book of 2022 by comparing them against each other. This “game” has been going around the online book communities and looks fun. Also, I’m curious to see how the results compare to the rating I gave to each book. So, I went to my reading spreadsheet and grabbed the title of my top 16 books. All of them are 4 stars or above. I needed a multiplier of 2 for the brackets to work perfectly, and I’m not doing 32 books (mostly because there is no point in going so far back). The order of the books is completely random and doesn’t reflect the rating I gave. Without further ado, let the …

In 2022, I read 62 books. Although, I actually didn’t. I only read 49 books out of the 52 I was aiming for. But then, where do 13 books come from? Thin air? Ghosts? They actually come from everything I read last year. I’m just counting them differently. Last May, I published a post where I tried for a month to track how many words I was reading instead of pages or books. The main reason was how much pressure I felt to finish books and keep on track with my Goodreads challenge. I found tracking by reading progress through books alone wasn’t fair. Not all books are made the same, so why should they be quantified the same? And so it began my word-tracking adventure. At the time, I really enjoyed the experience and was renovating my motivation to read. So, I kept doing it for the rest of …

When I decided to buy Deep Work by Carl Newport, I had no idea the journey it would put me through. I was reading about a different approach to work, a change of perspective when what I found on those pages motivated me to experiment with different schedules. And today is finally the time to look back on the first experiment: the Rhythmic schedule. As this is considered the easiest deep work philosophy to archive, I started my journey with it. After all, I only need to work every day at the same time for 90 minutes. Sounds simple enough. Honestly, it wasn’t that easy, but it taught me a lot more about my work, myself and how much I can accomplish. Rhythmic schedule rules My deep work sessions are to work on blog posts, so I can somewhat compare each philosophy using the same project. Although I also what …

Everyone that has worked from home knows that as good as it sounds, it’s not always a walk on the beach. There are so many distractions, and it’s easy to lose a routine. And that is the state I’ve been in. I have a morning and nighttime routine that is more or less consistent, but during the day, it has been hard to create one. From pets to unplanned tasks, finding a balance isn’t easy. So, I’ve been looking for strategies and ways to accomplish my work while still being flexible enough to accommodate any unpredictable tasks that need to be done. From time blocking to so many other techniques I’ve found online, one stood out the most: deep work. This is a term created by Carl Newport about a deep state of focus. The idea is to reach a mental state of deep concentration to produce better quality work …

After a particularly spectacular reading month back in June (you can read more about it in this post), I felt I could conquer the reading world. I saw how much I could accomplish if I dedicated the time to reading. And after finishing one book, the next thing I wanted to do was to finish another. So having read 9 books in June, almost double the amount of my best reading month ever, I was pumped! At that moment, I made a decision. I was going to read my entire TBR, both physical and digital. This decision was not motivated purely by an exceptional reading month. My first reading experiment of the year made me realise the books I buy are based on my mood. Although, I tend to feel guilty for prioritising a shiny new book over the ones collecting dust on my shelves. And if I avoid reading …

I need to start by clarifying that reading is not a competition or that I think it should be. Reading is a hobby, a source of entertainment, therefore, should never be a competition. And in the golden age of online sharing, I know it can be hard to avoid comparing our reading with others, especially when some are capable of hitting double digits every month. But this post isn’t about reading more than other people. Every time I mention competition or competing, I’m talking about doing it against myself, challenging myself, and pushing myself as a reader, not comparing myself with others. Keep in mind this is purely an experiment to get even more enjoyment of reading. To be completely honest, I decided to make this post on a whim. I had a couple of ideas left for reading experiments to do this year when I came across a video …

The title is very self-explanatory. I decided to experiment for a month to track words instead of books. Yes, I’ve managed to complicate something so simple. Although, I have a good reason. I am a slow reader, as in I usually read at a speed of 180 words per minute. And my original idea for this experiment was to keep me motivated to read, possibly to read bigger books. Every time I look at a book with more than 400 pages, my first thought is how many weeks or even months it will take me to finish it. And that discourages me. So I was on the hunt for a way to allow me to fall in love with reading, no matter the size of the book. How the idea came to be One day in February, I found a YouTube video about reading 30 books in 30 days and, …

Some readers don’t care about tracking books and keeping tabs on everything they read. But I am not one of those. And I’m guessing you aren’t either. For that reason, I bring you three mobile apps you can use to track your everyday reading! I’ve been tracking my reading for a few years now. It started with Goodreads and has been getting more and more specific over time. What every reader wants to track can be a lot different. Maybe you just want to know how much time takes you to read each book. Or maybe you want to keep track of the genres you read most often. Or you just want a place where you can store all the quotes, thoughts and highlights while reading. No matter what you want, I’m going over the features, what I liked and didn’t like on each app, so you can see if …

Back in 2018, I gave myself for Christmas the Collector’s Edition of the Divergent series. And since then, I’ve been meaning to do a reread of the series. I was also planning another reading log type of post, so I merged both ideas. And I’m glad I did because otherwise, all my thoughts while reading Divergente for the first time since 2016 would be lost. The only thing left was to decide when I was going to read it. And Instagram decided for me. I casually stumbled upon the new 10th Anniversary Editions and… oh my… the artwork is BEAUTIFUL! Now, I want to find a reason to justify spending more money on a series that I already own two copies of (the Movie Tie-in Edition in Portuguese and the Collector’s Edition in English). And maybe, just maybe, rereading the story can give me a reason why I should buy …