Do you have a post-book process? As in, what do you do after you’ve finished a book? Do you immediately start your next book? Do you write out your thoughts in a lengthy Goodreads review? Do you stare at your library book stack or bookshelves to decide what you want to read next? Have you ever even thought about having a process of what to do when you finish a book?
Kaytee and Meredith, the hosts of the Currently Reading podcast, talked about their post-book process on a recent episode and it got me thinking about my own process, which is… nothing, really. Here’s what it looks like now:
- I finish the book and rate it on Goodreads. I’ll also mark my next book as “currently reading” immediately since I adhere to my strict TBR list and always know what’s coming next.
- Side note: my TBR list is only 5 books deep at any point in time. I keep a longer list of the different books I want to read soon and I can choose any book from that longer list to be added to the shorter TBR list. This ensures I’m not reading too much of one genre, too many heavy books in a row, etc. I also make sure for every two non-diverse books, I have a diverse book included. It’s mood reading lite, I guess you could say.
- If it’s a book I own, it goes back on my bookshelf. If it’s a library book, it gets placed near my front door so I remember to grab it when I’m leaving home.
- I keep a stack of the 5 books I’m reading next on my dresser. I’ll pluck the book off the stack, get a bookmark, and place it on my bed or coffee table. At this time, I usually pull up my TBR list, remove the book I just took off my TBR stack, move the rest of the books up the list, and then add a new book to the bottom of the list. If this new book is one I own, I’ll pull it off my shelves and place it on the stack. If it’s a book I need to get from the library, I’ll request it.
- About a week later, I remember that I haven’t filled out my reading tracker spreadsheet in a good, long while. OOPS. I fill it in and often consult Goodreads to figure out what days I started/finished certain books.
- I put together my actual, fully fleshed-out thoughts about the book when it’s time to write my “What I’m Reading” blog post. Sometimes it’s been many, many days or over a week since I finished the book, so my thoughts aren’t always as fresh as I’d like them to be.
Not the most streamlined post-book process, huh? I never really thought about what the ideal post-book process should look like until I listened to this episode. I mean, I’ve wanted to get better about filling in my reading tracker more frequently and I always thought it would be nice to do what Meredith does after she finishes a book and leave myself a voice memo on my immediate thoughts after finishing a book. But those were just ideas I had. I wasn’t sure I wanted to put them into practice.
But the more I sat with this episode and the more that I thought about streamlining my own post-book process to make it something that feels really good to me as a reader, it started to feel like something I have to do. Or at least, I have to try and see how it goes. So, here’s the new post-book process I want to begin implementing:
- Once I finish a book, I rate it on Goodreads and write some quick thoughts about the book in my Notes app. (Or I can do what Meredith does and leave myself a voice memo.)
- The same day, I need to fill in my reading tracker.
- I don’t need to start my next book right away. In fact, since my TBR list is a tab on my reader tracker spreadsheet, once I fill in my tracker, I can tab over to my TBR list and take a look at the books I have there and choose my next book from that list. It doesn’t have to be the first book on the list, if there’s another book that speaks more to me at this moment in time.
- I can continue with my usual process of removing a book from my TBR list, adding a new book to the list, finding the book on my shelves, and placing it on my TBR stack. (This whole process brings me such delight.)
- Within one or two days, I need to write out my overall thoughts about the book in a draft, to be used for an upcoming “What I’m Reading” blog post.
Do you have any sort of post-book process?