How to organise your To-Be-Read… Even when you keep adding to it

If you’re anything like me, your To-Be-Read, otherwise affectionately known as your TBR, is an organism in its own right, expanding and growing with every day that passes. As book lovers, buying or borrowing new books can feel as necessary as breathing, even when all the unread volumes decking your shelves are throwing shade at your blatant disloyalty.

You might justify your new acquisitions with the familiar refrain of ‘Oh, I’ll read that one next’, even as you place it on the shelf and begin eyeing up the other big names inhabiting your list. Don’t worry, you’re not alone and if like me, you don’t want to abandon your book-buying ways, you’re going to need a way to manage your ever-growing inventory.

So how do I organise my TBR?

To be honest, I don’t.

Considering the theme of this post, I can see how this might be an unexpected twist to the story. A post about TBR organisation and the author doesn’t even follow her own rules? I can see how those two things don’t tally up.

However, just because I don’t follow any specific organisation rules, doesn’t mean I don’t have them (Spoiler: see rule no. 5). In fact, if any of you are reading this with a smidge of skepticism lingering, I salute you as a kindred spirit. This being said, I do like to have a skeleton of a structure in place for when I just don’t know where to turn my roaming eyes next and my book collection has spilled over the shelves and onto the floor beneath.

So what does my structure look like? Here are the 5 things I’ve put in place to help me out:

1. Use a reading tracker

Okay, so this might not sound that useful, especially because reading trackers are also places where you’re inundated with positive book reviews which are essentially catnip for us weak-willed book lovers. However, if you’ve not used one before, you might be surprised at how much they can help to keep you on track.

I usually set myself a goal each year, specifying the minimum (or maximum if I’m feeling ambitious) number of books I’d like to read. I always find this to be a great motivator and it keeps me accountable. At least this way, I’m working my way through the piles of unread even if I do keep replacing them with new book purchases at the same time.

Of course, reading goals aren’t for everyone and that’s okay — this isn’t the only advantage of using a tracker. It’s also a handy place to keep a record of everything you’ve read so far. You can look back over your favourites (and not so favourites) without having to wrack your brains. It’s also a great way of making sure you read diversely. You’ll easily be able to pick out whether you instinctively stick to one genre or neglect others so that going forward you can choose books that take you outside of your comfort zone.

Although you shouldn’t feel compelled to set yourself a goal if you don’t want to, you’re also under no pressure to share it with anyone if you do. And if you do fancy getting a bit competitive, why not set up a challenge with some bookish friends to see who can read the most in a year? The beauty of it is that it can be as much a private tracking tool as a public one.

2. Try a reading challenge

This is perfect for those of you out there who look at your bookshelves and don’t even know where to start. When you pick a reading challenge, it takes the decision out of your hands and more often than not encourages you to be a bit more adventurous with your book choices.

The good news is, there are loads of challenges out there to pick from, so you’re guaranteed to find something that’ll suit you. Want to tackle the classics or move away from a whitewashed bookshelf? No problem. Reading challenges are designed to help make those things less daunting and more manageable by giving you a clear starting point.

This isn’t a new idea. Did anyone else have a library that used to dish out challenge cards over the summer holiday? For every book you read, you were rewarded with an alien sticker on your card to signify your achievements. There was no better feeling than reaching the end of August with a card full of those weird alien trophies. Well, imagine this but for grown-ups and you’ve got the essence of what a reading challenge can do for you and your bookshelves.

3. Assign a priority shelf

I came to this trick late in the game but it turned out to be a bit of a life-saver. It’s as simple as it sounds: set aside one of your bookshelves and make a commitment to only store books on there that you’re going to read immediately.

This has a couple of benefits. Firstly, if you have all of your immediate to-be-read books on one shelf, you won’t have any reason to get sidetracked by tempting titles elsewhere. You only have one place to go so your eyes shouldn’t be inclined to cast their traitorous gaze elsewhere.

Secondly, using a single shelf will help you to narrow down what it is you want to read. If you’re avoiding picking up a particular book every time you go to your shelf, that’s probably a sign to move it off the priority shelf to free up space for another title. It's okay to be a bit brutal in culling those that aren’t pushing your buttons.

(DISCLAIMER: I feel like, at this point, I should just note that designating a priority shelf doesn’t automatically stop you from perusing your other books. Unfortunately, you guys are still going to have to show a bit of self-restraint. However, the priority shelf should encourage you to be more disciplined. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t — you do what you can 🤷)

4. Make a lucky dip

Sometimes, you know what book you want next but other times, choosing your next read isn’t so clear-cut. Plus, for all I’ve gone on about having some discipline and setting yourself goals, you also need to give yourself a little flexibility. That’s where the lucky dip comes in.

When I'm stuck on what to read next, the lucky dip is my saviour. It’s nothing fancy, just a tupperware box that I keep on the top shelf of my bookcase. Inside, you’ll find little slips of paper, each bearing the name of a book I have yet to read. I’ll select one of these at random, with the title written on it winning the coveted position of my next reading conquest.

It’s not fool-proof — sometimes I don’t want to read the book I draw out either. However, it is a good way of solving a reading funk without veering away from your TBR too wildly.

5. Go with your gut

This last method isn’t really a trick or a tip, and it kind of runs against the other four suggestions in this post, but I personally think it’s the most important.

At the end of the day, I read because it’s something I enjoy doing and I’m pretty confident that the same thing can be said of every other bookworm out there. It’s not a race to see who can read the fastest or tick off the most prize winners. I don’t want it to be that way and constantly putting prescriptive structures in place can take the fun out of exploring new authors and titles. Instead, if you allow yourself to read intuitively, there’s a joy to be found in a never-ending TBR.

That’s not to say you should throw caution to the wind and plunder your coffers in your quest to own every book on the planet, but it does mean giving yourself a little wiggle room whilst using the above tips and tricks to keep you on track. After all, you won’t enjoy a book as much if you’re reading it out of obligation rather than excited anticipation.

The key to intuitive reading is knowing your own reading habits. For example, personally, January is a great time for me to set goals and read more ambitious books. As cliche as it is, I’m normally riding high on the unknown of a new year, keen to tick a few titles off my newest reading challenge or make a dent in reading goals. However, as soon as I hit October and November, my seasonal instincts start to kick in and I’m inexorably drawn to feel-good, addictive series and comforting rereads of my favourites (Sarah. J. Maas, I’m looking at you). Because I know this, I rarely bother setting myself strict reading goals in these months and instead I just go with what I feel my imagination wants.

Ultimately, we read to escape and we can’t do that if we’re hemmed in by restrictive structures and rigid rules.

So there you have it — my top 5 tips and tricks to help manage your TBR and organise your reading habits. As you’ve guessed, they’re not hard and fast rules, and I’m often the first one to break them. Plus, what works for me might not work for you. Everyone reads in a different way so what I can’t live without might grind your gears and that’s okay.

The bottom line is that reading should bring you happiness and joy. When you look at it like that, managing your TBR should be a breeze.