I hate to admit it, but I am one of the most scatterbrain people I know. I have improved to the point where won’t forget I have something due for work. In my reading and book blogger life, however, I am a mess. Let’s say someone wants me to do a sponsored post on a specific day. Most likely, if it fits in my blog content, I will agree then forget all about it until I get an email asking when my post is going live—Ummmmm..yeah, not precisely the image that I want to portray. I finally just admitted I needed helped and put my editorial calendar in Trello and called it a day, which would be one if I did not have a million books to review and library books to take back. Along with forever playing catch up on a blog post that is supposed to be a hobby.
I knew I needed to get my act together, so I went to my most favorite place to find out stuff. Google. I was amazed at all of the people using Trello to track their reading. Some people had what looked like overkill, but I had to admit that they had the right idea. So, of course, I kept researching. In a sudden flash of understanding, I knew what I wanted what I like to call my book board.
I started playing around with Trello and was pleasantly surprised that it was more powerful and robust than I had initially thought. I even splurged and paid the 45 dollars for an annual plan.
I am a very eclectic reader. Which is a fancy way of saying I will read almost anything once. I groups based on what genre I keep finding myself being drawn to time and r=time again. So if I see that the last ten books I have read were of the self-help section, I will look at the other boards to find something to understand that has no inkling of self-help at all.
The Trello book board is ONLY for books that I ALREADY have in my possession. For example, I want to read Amish Vampires in Space. I do not have any form of that book, so I will just put that on the Rock Your Reading Tracker that Sarah made. Once some type of book is in my hands, I will put it on my Trello book board.
I then put labels on individual cards. This is to help me know what service or if it is an ARC that I need to get to that day or soon. Since I have started doing this, I have not “missed” a deadline in a good long while. Before sooo many of my ARC’s and even library books, has slipped under the radar. What put me in a terrible mood was when a library book that I waited MONTHS for it to be my turn, finally arrives and next thing know I have 15 dollars in Library fines. I have started using Trello as sort of a glorified reading journal, and I can get to something like 92 percent of my library books before having to wait another six months for my turn roll around again.
What labels do I put on the cards you ask. Mostly I just put it is from the Library, Kindle Unlimited or Scribed. The Kindle Unlimited and my books I draw the line of having a book show up on different services as I have found that it can be overwhelming, so I try and limit myself to ten books from any one service, so I don’t end up with three different reviews of The Three-Body Problem. Yeah, can’t let THAT happen again. I have one label for a hard deadline and another that tells me if it is a library book or a book that I own. With a library book or an ARC book, I also put the due date in and then forces them into some semblance of order according to their due. I have been continuously amazed at how much I can read with that one simple trick. In the past, it felt as if I was always behind and not getting posts up as I promised and yes this may be a mostly hobby blog but still If someone tells me that they will do something I like being able to trust that they will and not back out for whatever reason. I always try to extend the same courtesy that I hope another person would show me. I am pleased to report that after I spent some weeks tweaking the board and fine-tuning it that I can now look and easily see what I need to read and write. I am not there yet, but I aim to get a least a month ahead with all my posts.