10 Suggestions for How to Create a TBR Jar

I promise that this is the last post I'll publish on TBRs for some time (if not the rest of 2021). I mentioned in one of my posts that I'd discuss setting up a TBR jar in a bit more detail. As a result, this is where we are.

What exactly is a TBR jar? TBR jars can be similar to a chores jar. You get a mason jar (or something similar) and some popsicle sticks or post-it notes. Write down book titles and authors, and stick them in the jar. Shake it up, and then blindly pull out a popsicle stick or post-it note. You can use a TBR jar to simply choose your next read, or you can use it to set up your monthly TBRs.

With that out of the way, let's get into how to set up a TBR jar. Here are 10 suggestions for setting up your own TBR jar.

Suggestion 1: You don't need to write every book on your overall TBR.

Most readers have vast TBR piles of 100+ books. You don't need to include all of these books in your TBR jar. Just include some anticipated reads or books you want to read in the next month or year.

Suggestion 2: If you don't want to see the titles of your books, use post-it notes or slips of paper rather than popsicle sticks.

Ultimately, what you use for your TBR jar is up to you. However, if you want to surprise yourself with what books, post-it notes or slips of paper make it easier to hide book titles (you can fold over the paper to cover the title).

Suggestion 3: Decorate your TBR jar however you want.

Decorating your TBR jar can help to really personalize it. You can paint it, add stickers to it, do both of these, or do something else entirely. Whatever you choose to do to your TBR jar, it can be really fun to personalize it.

Suggestion 4: Once you have some titles in, shake your TBR jar around a little bit.

When you stick titles into your TBR jar, they'll stay in the same place, and you'll most likely remember (roughly) what title went where. If you shake up your TBR jar a little bit, this helps to move titles around so they're not in the same place. As a result, you get a bit more of a surprise with your selection.

Suggestion 5: Use different colors to indicate different genres.

The different colors can come from the paper, the sharpie, the pen, or any other way. However, this can help you get some idea of what you may be getting when you're choosing your upcoming TBR. Some suggestions would be red for romance, blue for contemporary, and purple for fantasy. (You obviously don't have to use these colors for these genres.)

Suggestion 6: Try to include books that you haven't read yet.

I love re-reading. However, I see TBR jars as a way to finally get around to the books you haven't read yet. While you can still re-read books, I would suggest only including books you haven't read yet in your TBR jar.

Suggestion 7: If you've read a book, take the corresponding popsicle stick or post-it out of the TBR jar.

This suggestion does correspond with Suggestion 6. If you've read a book that was in your TBR jar, take it out so you can read other books you haven't gotten to yet. This really helps you tackle your overall TBR.

Suggestion 8: While it's a good idea to include books you want/plan to borrow (from family, friends, or a library), try to keep in mind when you'll be able to borrow the books.

I definitely recommend including books you want/plan to borrow. However, it's for the best if you get an idea of when you'll be able to borrow the book and for how long you'll be borrowing it.

Suggestion 9: While a TBR jar can be super helpful, it's not the end all be all.

I've mentioned this in most of my TBR-related posts. TBRs in general are not the end all be all, whether your overarching TBR or a TBR jar. If your mood or thoughts change about a book, or if you can't read it at a specific point in time, you can save it for a later time (or just not read it at all). 

Suggestion 10: Keep in mind, as with any TBR list, that you don't have to read a book you pick from your TBR jar.

I alluded to this a bit in Suggestion 9. Let's say you pick a horror book from your TBR jar, and you're not in the mood for horror (assuming you still want to read the book). You can set that book aside and choose another book from your TBR jar. On the other side of the coin, if you just don't plan to read a book any more, you can take that title out of your TBR jar and choose another book.

10 Tips for Setting Up a Weekly TBR Pile

Today's my final post of September before my monthly reading wrap up! Going along with the theme I set for these last September days, I'm doing another TBR-related post. Monday's post focused on setting up a yearly TBR pile. Yesterday's post will be on setting up a monthly TBR pile. Today's post will be on setting up a weekly TBR pile.

Just a couple of notes before we get into today's post (yes, I copied and pasted these here because they're important):

1. It is okay to feel stressed about your TBR pile. Sometimes, you just need to fully trash it and go with your gut/mood if you're feeling stressed about it.
2. Your TBR does not need to be finished by the end of the week, month, or even year. If you don't get to a couple of books, that is fine. You're not doing anything wrong as a reader.

Here are 10 tips for setting up a weekly TBR pile. (Note: if any tips are repetitive, I will just leave them as a tip without the extra details.)

Tip 1: Have a Goodreads account.

Tip 2: Create a TBR jar.

Tip 3: Be open to TBR changes.

Tip 4: Only plan for one book per week.

Tip 5: You can always read more than one book per week.

Tip 6: It's okay to take more than a week to read a book.

Tip 7: Be very flexible with your TBR.

Tip 8: Start off with shorter books rather than longer books.

Tip 9: Maybe do this when you have a vacation or are on break.

Tip 10: It is okay to take your time with your reading.

8 Tips for Setting Up a Monthly TBR Pile

Going along with the theme I set for these last September days, I'm doing another TBR-related post. Yesterday's post focused on setting up a yearly TBR pile. Today's post will be on setting up a monthly TBR pile. Tomorrow's post (Sept. 29) will be on setting up a weekly TBR pile.

Just a couple of notes before we get into today's post (yes, I copied and pasted these here because they're important):

1. It is okay to feel stressed about your TBR pile. Sometimes, you just need to fully trash it and go with your gut/mood if you're feeling stressed about it.
2. Your TBR does not need to be finished by the end of the week, month, or even year. If you don't get to a couple of books, that is fine. You're not doing anything wrong as a reader.

Here are 8 tips for setting up a monthly TBR pile. (Note: if any tips are repetitive, I will just leave them as a tip without the extra details.)

Tip 1: Have a Goodreads account.

Tip 2: Create a TBR jar.

This is similar to Tip 2 from yesterday's post. However, setting up a TBR jar can help you decide what books to include in your TBR for that month.

Tip 3: Be open to TBR changes.

Again, this is similar to the corresponding tip from yesterday's post. However, I want to make it more specific to monthly TBRs. Sometimes, you include a book you want to read in a specific month at the month's start (or right before the month starts). However, you may not be able to get to it in that month, or you may just decide you don't want to read it in the end.

Tip 4: Only set a minimum number of books for that month.

This may seem a bit contradictory. You want to reach a certain number of books by the end of the year, so you want to read as many books during a particular month. However, setting a minimum number of books to read in one month can help you reach it rather than trying to read a bunch of books in one month.

Tip 5: If you read over your minimum, that's great.

I intentionally included this tip to bounce off of Tip 4 (and leading into Tip 6). If you read more than the minimum that you set in your monthly TBR, then that's great. If you can read more than what you set for your TBR that month, then go for it. Just remember to not push yourself.

Tip 6: If you don't hit your minimum, that's also great.

Again, I intentionally included this tip to contradict, in a sense, Tip 5. If you don't hit your minimum, that's also great. If you don't reach the minimum number of books you originally set for your monthly TBR, that can be a good sign. You didn't force yourself to reach the minimum, and you didn't push yourself.

Tip 7: Be flexible with your TBR.

This is another similar tip that I included in yesterday's post. However, being flexible with your monthly TBRs can really help you out in the end. It's also why I included Tip 3, and Tips 5-6.  And as I mentioned in this past Sunday's post (why TBRs are stressful), life happens. As a result, when life does happen in ways you don't expect, being flexible with your monthly TBR can really help you out in the end.

Tip 8: If you borrow from your local library, school library, or the Libby app, you may not be able to include these books into your TBR until the last minute.

I mentioned this yesterday, but this tip also helps out with Tip 7. Sometimes, you're able to loan a new book from the library, and you don't want to pass up the chance to borrow and read it. So you loan the book, read it, and return it. This is why it's good to be flexible with your monthly TBR, and why it's good to be open to possible TBR changes.

10 Tips for Setting Up a Yearly TBR Pile

Given yesterday's post, I thought it would be a good idea to give you all some tips and suggestions for setting up your own TBR piles. I decided that it would be easiest if I split the different kinds of TBRs up into 3 sections - yearly, monthly, and weekly. Most of these tips will be roughly the same, just different contexts depending on what kind of TBR you're setting up.

Today, I'll be focusing on setting up a yearly TBR pile, tomorrow (Sept. 28) will be on setting up a monthly TBR pile, and Wednesday (Sept. 29) will be on setting up a weekly TBR pile.

Just a couple of notes before we get into today's post:

1. It is okay to feel stressed about your TBR pile. Sometimes, you just need to fully trash it and go with your gut/mood if you're feeling stressed about it.
2. Your TBR does not need to be finished by the end of the week, month, or even year. If you don't get to a couple of books, that is fine. You're not doing anything wrong as a reader.

Here are 10 tips for setting up a yearly TBR pile.

Tip 1: Have a Goodreads account.

Goodreads can help you keep track of all the books you want to read in the TBR shelf. However, you can also create a separate shelf for your TBR list for a particular year - i.e. 2021 TBR, or 2022 TBR.

Tip 2: Create a TBR jar.

I'll go into a bit more detail about what a TBR jar is and how to set one up in my post for October 2nd. Not only does using a TBR jar help you be a bit more random with your TBR pile at any given time, but it can also help you make quick decisions as to your next read. And how you set your TBR jar up is 100% up to you.

Tip 3: Be open to TBR changes.

Maybe it's December, and you wanted to read a certain book coming out in June the next year. However, once it's released, you find out that there's some controversy swirling around the author, the book, or both, which makes you not want to read it. This example is a bit extreme, but things happen, so it's good to be open to TBR changes.

Tip 4: Do not plan for every book you're going to read during the year.

This is sort of related to Tip 3. You don't want to plan for every single book you'll read in a single year. That is, of course, unless you plan to read only one book per month and read 12 books in one year. If you want to hit a bigger book goal (i.e. 25+ books read in one year), don't plan for every book.

Tip 5: Your yearly TBR can consist of only your anticipated reads for that year.

Again, this is related to Tips 3-4. The simplest, and easiest, way to go about your yearly TBR is to set up an anticipated reads TBR for that year. You can do this on Goodreads by setting up a shelf for it, such as 2021 Anticipated Reads, or 2022 Anticipated Reads.

Tip 6: If you want to add more to your anticipated reads list for that year, you can do that.

Sometimes, you don't know about a book until closer to its release date. If it becomes an anticipated read for you, then it is perfectly fine for you to add it to a particular year. But try to keep lists like this to a smaller number.

Tip 7: If you don't get to all of the books you wanted to in a particular year, that's okay.

I feel like a lot of readers think that if they don't hit their yearly reading goal, then they're "doing something wrong" when it comes to reading. If you don't get to all of the books you wanted to read in a particular year, that is okay.

Tip 8: Accept that you're not going to read every book there is under the sun in one year.

You may be thinking, "But, HBR, this is a bit obvious. Of course I can't read every book in one year." However, this is one of those tips that's obvious once it's brought up. Readers, myself included, tend to forget this on occasion. It's okay to not hit your yearly goal/TBR, and it's okay not to read 100+ books a year.

Tip 9: If you borrow from your local library, school library, or the Libby app, you'll have access to books you don't usually have access to.

This tip really relates to Tips 3-4. Sometimes, your library or the Libby app has access to a book before you're able to buy it. This is a great perk because you don't have to spend money on a book you may end up disliking to some degree. 

Tip 10: It's okay to wait for the hype around a book to die down before you actually pick it up.

I don't know about you all, but I'm one of those people who gets turned off a bit when a book gets even a little hype. If I'm seeing it in multiple places, I'm less likely to pick it up at that moment. But if there isn't a lot of hype, or the hype has died down, then I pick it up. And if you do this too, that's okay.