I had to make a TBR Tracker (TBR = To Be Read). It feels a little like a secret society that no one talks about. It’s a club that I’m a member of. And that club is the I Own More Books Than I Have Time to Read Club.

The club name needs an update, I will admit.

Over Mother’s Day I went to Barnes & Noble and brought home a few new books and tried to find room on my shelf. That’s when I realized, wow, I really haven’t read any of the books I already own! This wasn’t the first time this thought has come to mind, but it was the first time I truly stared at all the uncracked spines on the shelf.

Who is the culprit here? Me, of course (it’s me, hi…) My own actions are completely to blame! It’s accepting books from others that they’re giving away for free, or it’s impulse buying after seeing an excellent review, and it’s monthly book clubs that I usually resist, but sometimes the book is far too tempting.

Bookshelf Challenge

In an effort to remedy this overflow of literary loveliness, I decided to put myself on a book-buying ban and challenge myself to read the books I already have. The Bookshelf Challenge has been born.

Because I am a natural-born archiver, I decided that I need to track my progress. To do so, I turned to my trusty iPad and Goodnotes.

Let’s keep it simple

I decided to keep the tracker fairly simple. My heart wants to go deep and add a lot to these pages, but the goal is to simply track my progress. I have a Book Journal that I can spill all the extra details in!

For this simplistic tracker, I grabbed the cover of each unread book off of the internet, added a spot for my rating, a start date, and a finish date. It’s very simple and easy to keep up with. (I’ll have another post that goes into my Book Journal process.)

What I learned

I have some books I’m genuinely scared to read. Not because they’re scary or thrillers (I definitely have a couple of those), but I mean, I’m scared to read them because I either tried before and they were over my head, or they have been on my shelf for over 20 years and I genuinely don’t know how they will hold up. There are a few books that my mom passed down to me that were on her shelf in high school (late 1970s for reference).

I also have some incomplete series. I won’t be as strict on reading all of those because it would require me filling in the gaps and buying more books (which I’m trying to prevent right now!)

Oh, you want a process video?

I did film the process of making this tracker over on my YouTube channel. You can find the struggle of that filming process below.

So what’s the end goal here?

I have 72 books to get through before I can buy anything new. Do I want to buy any new books right now? Uh, yes. Absolutely, I do. Fourth Wing. The rest of the ACOTAR series. Happy Place. There’s a lot that have hit my Want to Read list on Goodreads in the last month. But I will remain strong!

Is there a read-by date? No! Are you kidding? Before I counted how many books I had to read, I told myself I would finish my shelf by year-end. That’s not going to happen, but cute goal, Ashley.

At present, I’m just trying to read 3-4 books per month. That’s doable for me as I only have about 1-2 hours a day to read. My goal is to keep things realistic so I don’t burn out.

At the time of this writing, I have read 6 of 72 books. I’m going to be happy with that progress and give myself grace if some months I can’t hit that goal (like when our daughter joins us later this year).

I’m excited to finally tackle some behemoths, some intimidating reads, and some titles I have just been waiting to get around to. What does your physical TBR list look like? Are you a member of this poorly named club? If you just realized you’re a member, WELCOME.