Book Blogger Confessions #3 (2.6.12)

Book Blogger Confession is a new blog meme hosted by Tiger of All Consuming Books and Karen of For What It’s Worth. The meme will run on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of every month  to discuss some of the frustrations that are unique to book bloggers.

You can read the introductory post here.

Q: Deadlines for reviewing and blogging. Do you set them? How do you keep them? What do you do if you can’t meet a deadline?

I try to set very few deadlines for my blog. But I do have them. I enjoy participating in blog tours and in so doing, must adhere to a set date for the review. I usually do not have any problem with making these deadlines, as I am very careful with how much I schedule for myself. I have a calendar specifically for keeping track of book reviews and refer to it as I take on new blog tour requests. I keep this calendar right next to the computer and as I finish a book, always refer to it to decide if there are any books that need to be read before just randomly picking my next read. I also put a sticky on each review book I receive, with the date I got the book, the date the book review needs to be posted, anything else I am doing with the book – giveaway, guest post from author, etc. For some reason, I like to read the books for the blog tours near the date they are to be posted. 

For books that I get to review that do not have set review dates, I try to get to them when I can. I do keep track of when they come in, putting a sticky on the cover with the date received. I always look at those books when I need a new book to read, but quite honestly, if I am not in the mood to read the book at that moment, I wait.

The only other books that could be considered “scheduled” books are those that I get out of the library and those for my book club. The library books are only considered “scheduled” books in that they need to go back on a certain date and sometimes cannot be renewed. As for my book club books, again like the books I read for blog tours, I tend to read them close to the day of our book club meeting so that the story-line stays fresh in my mind.

I tend to keep all my review books, scheduled or unscheduled, my library books and my book club books in one area of my book shelf and I put them in order of date needed to be read by. This helps me know if I can sneak in a “fun” book before having to read a “scheduled” book. 

Of course, I haven’t even mentioned the self-imposed deadlines that I create for myself when it comes to reading challenges. Always in the back of my mind is the question of whether the next book I read is going to help me reach my reading goals with the challenges I sign up for. It’s not so bad with the year-long reading challenges, especially at this time of the year (December, on the other hand, gets a little crazy trying to make sure I am able to finish everything) but I also do some challenges that are only a few months long and for those ones, like the Spring Reading Thing or the Fall Into Reading challenges, I add another level to the challenge by creating a list of books to complete in those three months. I usually put down 20 -25 books and the list is comprised of review books that I already have scheduled during that time, library books I have out, book club books if they are already chosen for those months, books that will help me out with the other challenges I am participating in and some “fun” books either that I just want to read or that are coming out during that time period. Of course, I don’t need to do this, but I do find it fun to try and achieve this goal each time.

The only other things that occur on my blog are the regular book reviews and memes that I like to participate in. With both these, I do not go crazy trying to get them done. The reviews get posted when I get to them. I do try to post at least two book reviews a week and sometimes I am able to get more than that posted, but if I don’t get to them, I don’t get to them…no big deal. As for the memes, I like to do the In My Mailbox on Sundays and It’s Monday, What Are You Reading on Mondays. Again, if I get to them – great, but it’s not the end of the world if I do not. I like the It’s Monday meme, though, because it helps me organize what’s going on and what I need to do as far as reviews…and it helps me stay on track.

These systems I have in place, however crazy or anal they might seem, work for me. Do I sometimes feel like pulling my hair out to get things done, yes, but I still do it over and over again. 

What about you? How do you deal with deadlines?