In Which A Reader's Respite Resolves

A Reader's Respite is getting a head start on New Year's Resolutions.

Why so early, you ask?

To begin with, we've never actually resolved any resolutions before. Ever. Hitherto (isn't that just the best word?), we've thought New Year's Resolutions as a list made with good intentions, but ultimately doomed to fail and induce gut-wrenching guilt and feelings of failure and shame.


But as 2009 hurtles towards us at light speed approaches, it has become patently obvious that we need one essential ingredient to start the New Year off right:

ORGANIZATION

In order to accomplish this task set before us, A Reader's Respite has identified the following steps that must be taken.
  1. There are about a gazillion fabulous blogs out there in Blogland. I currently subscribe to 142 of them. Organization means commenting on the blog posts I enjoy so much every day. After all, how can I expect you to keep feeding (ha! great pun!) me such great information if I'm not telling you how much I love your posts?
  2. Writing book reviews is almost not quite an art form. A craft, if you will. Organization will be facilitated by honing my craft and improving my review writing skills. Perhaps a workshop is in order?
  3. Keeping an up-to-date and appropriately tagged online database is essential for organization. A Reader's Respite currently keeps several scattered and woefully incomplete and inappropriately tagged online databases that are, for all intents and purposes, utterly useless. Not to mention embarrassing.
  4. Email inboxes are not useful if ignored. 'Nuff said.
  5. Only the weak-minded are easily distracted. This is perhaps best summed up by the powerfully philosophical dialogue in the immortal George Lucas film, Star Wars, in which we are reminded:


In short, A Reader's Respite will be attaining organization by 2009. That will mean



and



What's going on your shame-and-guilt-inducing list?


21 comments:

  1. Heh. I will be posting a similar list by New Year's. And possibly hosting a health and fitness book challenge ... in my spare time (hah!)

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  2. I'm with you. I need to get a handle on some things. =)

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  3. Resolutions? Schmesolutions! I don't get suckered in anymore - feelings of guilt and depressing disappointment already abound.

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  4. What Amy said . . . If I nickel for every time I vowed to be more organized, I'd be rich enough to hire someone to do it for me.

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  5. I wonder how many men resolve to become more organized?

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  6. New Year's resolutions-I make em every year and I break em every year. I'm thinking this year I may just leave it and see what happens. lol.

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  7. 142? I subscribe to like 10 and can barely keep up with those.

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  8. I think this year, I will make reading and knitting based resolutions. I have a chance at keeping those =D

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  9. Well I just stick to online/book resolutions for now. I plan to get more organized with my challenges and make a list of books I hope to read each month instead of just reading as I see fit. I plan to improve my blog and improve my reviews and attract a bigger readership. I also plan to work more on my OTHER blog, which is working towards product reviews.

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  10. I'm so far behind on my reviews I'll never get caught up :(

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  11. I'd be happy if I could make a resolution stick about getting through my TBR pile. I have gotten better about accepting books but so many are tempting! (I feel your pain, ladytink!)

    If you find some good organizational tricks, send them my way, I'm in desperate need.

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  12. ok first things first...where do u get so many fun ---funny ideas :D:D:D:D u make my day :)

    I dnt thin kyur reviews have any probs... u r writing the erview to get a/c to us what u think right? and it works well :)

    And b4 2009 starts... i want to do the Thanksgiving thing :)
    Thanks for the wonderful laughs and smiles I bestow on myself beacause of yourawesome wit :)
    I am all time grateful.. and ope we can read more of you in the coming years! :) Thanks :)

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  13. LOL! Me, too! I've got to get a grip on the organization thing.

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  14. haha loved your list, most of it is true for me too, except may reading my mails. I do it religiously. I reply to emails instantly becuase i know if i keep them pending for more than 2 days i might forget about them forever.

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  15. Ms. RR: you've been given an award. Please come by and pick it up!

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  16. Bah, I hope to not make any resolutions for next year. Oh, the guilt..

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  17. Organization? What is that?
    Yeah, I don't know why I have a book blog since I can't write a review to save my life. But I am trying. And hopefully getting better and less long winded...

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  18. Oh you make me laugh! I'm with you on the organization thing. My review list consists of post it notes that tend to get knocked off and then I don't know what book they belong to....

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  19. Michele, my resolution is to finish the big, fat book that is sitting in my den, with a bookmark halfway through. It's Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters, a Pulitzer winner about Martin Luther King and the beginning of the civil rights movement. A terrific book, but I lost momentum and have never picked it up again. If you can organize you busy life, I can surely finish the book.

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  20. Dave - ha! I think we all have one of those books, but I haven't tried sitting the book out in the den as a constant reminder. Oh no, I hide the thing so the guilt doesn't overwhelm me.

    The book(s)? Shelby Foote's Civil War (non fiction) trilogy. The Civil War: A Narrative. I'm going to finish it if it kills me.

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  21. "Only the weak-minded are easily distracted."

    That's me in a nutshell! :)

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Fire away!