HUGE DISCLAIMER: Before you decide to throw a book to me (a very thick one indeed) please understand that I see nothing wrong with making TBR lists to plan what you will read; things I will write are only my experience and only my reasons so be understanding and let’s not throw books to each other, love you! 
Let me start by making something clear. I am obssessed with the whole concept of organization. I love organization. I love organizing everything, my room, my desk, my folders, my computer files… everything you can imagine.Since my mind is extremely chaotic at times, I do my best to be organized in order to survive. I love planning things to keep myself organized (bullet journals for many subjects; like reading/job/school etc). I usually write down small to-do lists everyday and religiously make weekly spreads in my bullet journal to see everything I have to do that day/ week clearly. It works very well considering my job and school work consuming me together. So I really liked the idea of monthly TBR (To-Be-Read) lists when I saw them on booktubers who I love so deeply and bookstagrams I follow, I really wanted to try it. I loved the whole concept of reading journal so I thought: “Hey, why not making a spread devoted to TBR list each month so that I don’t lose time by not knowing what to read?” Well, it sounds amazing at first. Until this month (April 2020) I did a TBR list of my monthly reading goals. I picked the books before the month started and wrote it down. It did two things to me:
1. While being incredibly helpful about what to read next, my mind changes a lot. When I read a book, sometimes I crave romance, sometimes I crave history, sometimes I just want to read something scary. Since my mind changes so often, I started feeling this burden on my shoulders. I know the books in my TBR are there for a reason, I know I paid for them and got them but maybe this month is not the right month to read it. So writing this list of books pressured me so badly to the point where I didn’t want to read the book at all.
2. I buy books randomly. Two or three times in a week I go to Goodreads, do some research and if I find a book which I really want to buy, I order it. So it is fair to say that I order at least two times in a month. My priority list changes with every book I get as well. Moreover, holding on to a list for a whole month is really hard for me. Even this month I read different books from the list because the list stresses me out.
Since it is clear that me and TBR lists aren’t getting along, what will I do in my reading journal?
Well I’ve come up with a new idea for this problem. (Not that you are obligated to put a TBR list in your reading journal but let’s say that you need some form of goal.) I will put goals for each month. For example since this whole pandemic caused my job to be switched online, I have more free time since I don’t kill 10 hours at work. Thus, I will set my goals as a number of books. For the next half of april, I’ve decided to finish two books for example. This will surely help me more to stay motivated and read more. I do like the idea of setting a goal because it is easy for me to get lost in Youtube all day and not read a page so by at least putting something there to follow will keep me from distracting myself.
Do you use TBR lists and if you do how you make them work? Let me know in the comments, I am very open to different and creative ways of making lists.
See you in my next post, until then; STAY SAFE LOVELIES. 
Luster of Books 