I’ve been inspired and excited by reading through all the goals people have posted about. It’s given me a lot of food for thought as I try to formulate my own goals for 2009.
Make time for personal reading. In 2008 I read a lot of books for class that I reviewed here, but in 2009 I want to make personal reading a priority as I can.
Review books within two weeks of finishing them. I let finished books sit around in 2008, mostly out of laziness, and I’d like to do better about that in 2009.
Keep notes while I read. I always think of review things to say when I’m reading, but forget them when I get to the review… very annoying. I carry a notebook everywhere, so I am going to try and take notes while I read.
Blog more about journalism. I want to write about more than just books, so I think this is a good topic stretch given my subtitling about journalism. I don’t know what “more” is, but just about anything is more than now 🙂
Alternate the length of my posts. I post a lot of things that are about 300-400 words long. I want to start putting up shorter and longer pieces to keep things interesting.
Leave more comments, about five per day. I have been getting a lot of comments lately which make me really happy. I need to be better about returning that to other bloggers.
Do research about self-hosting Sophisticated Dorkiness. Right now I’m on WordPress.com, but I’ve been considering self-hosting (a cost, but I’d get some more freedom with the design and stuff). I don’t know much of anything about what you need to do to host a website, so my goal is to research it soon.
Host the Blog Improvement Project successfully. This means coming up with interesting project activities, making sure to ask questions of other bloggers when I don’t know answers, and doing my best to encourage bloggers that are participating.
So there you go, goals for 2009. Let’s go!
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LunarPages is having a really good deal right now for hosting plans. Unlimited bandwidth and storage and it’s about $5 a month. 😀 Also I think in February SurpassHosting is having another $1 sale where you can get hosting for a year for…$1! I’m not sure how good they are compared to other hosting sites, but it might be worth a try for $1. (Though I think domain registration is a separate cost.)
Well I think the BIP is off to a good start, keep it up 🙂
I really like self-hosting, but I’ve never done it the other way. We had a pretty lousy host the first time around, but we switched in May or June and it’s been super great. It’s slightly more expensive than Anastasia’s and doesn’t include registering the domain. I’d be wary of $1 sales. There’s something you will be missing. How often does the server go down? How quickly is it fixed? Etc. Our first host was so hard to get help with things and it was a challenge, but our current one is almost instantaneous help when we need it…
Let me know if you want a referral.
The Blog Improvement Project seems to be off to a great start. I think everyone’s excited about it.
Taking notes while you read seems to be a good idea. Maybe I’ll start doing it too!
I think you’ll do great!!! Thanks for hosting this!!
Yes, as part of my thanks for hosting the blog improvement project, I’ve passed on a badly-worded award to you today at Necromancy Never Pays. But I swear I mean it nicely!
Yes, the BIP seems to have gotten off to a flying start, which is great. Although it may seem so, I do not spend all my time online pondering my blog(s), but that said, I have to say that due to the BIP, I have done some thinking about posting, design, comments etc. It has been great and I love the project already. I have gotten many great ideas and feel very inspired by all the other blogger’s posts, their comments and their hints and helpfulness!
I sometimes struggle to write book reviews too so taking notes while reading sounds like a great idea to me. I think I might incorporate this one into my own goals for this year and see if this helps things at all.
I think the BIP is off to a great start; I’ve already been inspired by it! Great list of goals – I share the first two. Good luck!
Just bragging about my latest post: my own very personal reading challenge. Aim: to lure readers who do not love crime fiction (yet) or need inspiration from Scandinavia – into my world of horrible deeds. (The first part is Danish, but not to worry, the second part is for anyone in here who dare!)
Thanks for hosting the BIP, Kim! I have yet to write my goals (I’ve been thinking about it, though 🙂 )
It looks like you’ve made a list of great goals for 2009 … Back in Oct. I switched from wordpress.com to self-hosted (I use BlueHost) using wordpress software. It was fairly straightforward, but took a while to re-build the links, etc.
It seems like “leave more comments” is on everyone’s list! It’s on mine.
Those are all great goals… I just might borrow some…
I need to leave more comments too. At least I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I have told myself several times that I need to take notes while I read, but I never get very far. The book becomes far to interesting to stop and take notes… does anyone have suggestions for this?