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Since some people are getting ready to start the 2016 challenge and probably most of us are either already finished or clearly not going to, I thought it might be fun/helpful to reflect on how we tackled the list of prompts for this year. Did you go in order, or start with the easiest or the hardest? Did you plan out every book in January--and then did you change them throughout the year? I want to hear what worked (or didn't work) for you!

My strategy for 2015 was to somewhat plan, with some choices more set than others. I wrote the ones I wasn't sure about in blue and the ones I was set on in black (and then still changed some of those!) Some of the prompts I thought would be easiest and just naturally fill themselves as I read throughout the year (like funny book and made me cry) ended up being a lot harder to fill than I expected. It was hard at the end of the year to try and find books that would definitely be funny or definitely make me cry when I didn't have time to read another if it didn't work. I went through a lot of goodreads lists trying to find things for both categories that I actually wanted to read!

I started out planning a few as well but mostly ones I'd actually have to actively decide, like a book by an author you love but haven't read, a book you should have read but didn't, book you started but didn't finish etc. I pretty much started by reading whatever struck my fancy plus a couple difficult ones in the first half of the year and then by around November started to have to read for categories. I may try to spread out my more difficult ones better this year

My strategy, which worked well for me, was to create a large spreadsheet, one tab to record ideas for each category (with the top contenders highlighted in another color), one tab to track each book I was reading and which categories it *could* fulfill with a highlight for the category it checked off, one tab with a final list, etc. Some categories, like "female author, " I never bothered to write down ideas, because I read SO MANY female authors it would be easy to just check one off for that category. In most cases, the ideas I had were books that were already on my TBR list, but in some cases I read a book I had not previously been planning to read. I started the year reading a few of the harder books (book you never finished, and book you were supposed to read for school) plus some books I really wanted to read, that also fulfilled a category. I went kind of nuts with the spreadsheet, and had it tracking the percentage of year elapsed as compared to the percentage of categories fulfilled, and all kinds of other stuff, but I really like doing that sort of thing so that was fun for me. For the first few months of the year, almost all of the books I read were for the Challenge (but not all of them). I didn't go in order, I just sort of picked and chose, whichever book I felt like reading next.

Nadine wrote: "a few of the harder books (book you never finished, and book you were supposed to read for school)..."

Those were definitely prompts I still had left in November/December.

Your spreadsheet sounds really neat, I don't even know how to make excel track how much of the year is elapsed or anything like that!

My plan was to tackle the hardest or least likable tasks first and then move toward the easier ones. I also had two books I read a little bit of each day, so that took off the pressure, knowing that I'd finish the longer books by the end of the year.

I am two books away from finishing and I am sure I'll finish those. One is an audio book, which actually was harder for me to get into than the text books I read, and the other is a book I'm reading a bit each day, so I was scheduled to finish on December 31.

I read whatever I wanted to read anyway and checked off the prompts if they fitted! It wasn't til about October that I started reading things specifically to fill prompts. I would definitely recommend starting that bit before October!

Well some had to be planned ahead of time like definitely a book you were supposed to read in high school and didn't , one you started and never finished, a book you own and never read etc.

I started with book you started and never finished which was Heart of Darkness , what a pain in the butt that was.

I started really getting into this book swapping club so I traded out books for what I wanted to read and also shopped a lot of a cheap used book store with a lot of titles. From those two sources and a few book list like sci-fi etc I was able to fill in prompts. I first I just read what I wanted to read but come September I realized I was way off. Luckily I was able to modify a lot of my plans and make it work because stuff I had read fit the prompts but I was sad to let some things go this year.

So basically I'd say start out with a road map but be flexible. Some stuff will fit in there even when you thought it wouldn't.

I think in the end about 25% of the books that I had originally planned to read for the challenge actually ended up being read for the challenge.

Also I filled in a few prompts with kids books which I am totally not ashamed about. I wanted to read these for years and I work two jobs so getting a few prompts filled this way was almost necessary.

I too made a list of the challenge prompts and the books I wanted to read in many categories. I pre-planned about a dozen prompts but was flexible about switching them out.

This year, I am planning to do some of the harder prompts earlier. My two remaining prompts are "a book you were supposed to read in school" and "started but never finished." I have switched my planned books for the latter more times than I should mention.

I am back to work tomorrow and have a houseful of company coming in from out of town so time is going to be scarce. Yikes.

For the first half of the year I didn't know about this list so I read whatever I wanted. Then I learned about this challenge through my local library and thanks to tracking my books on goodreads I was able to fill prompts with books that I had read up until that point. After that it took some planning, and more planning to complete the challenge.

For 2016, since I'm familiar with the challenge I penciled in some book ideas. For some of the prompts I have two or three ideas and can choose which ever one I feel like reading at that time. I tried to find books that fit the prompts with books that are already on my "to-read" shelf on goodreads and books that I already own at home.

I think I'm going to start with Political Memoir because I have absolutely no interest in that and I'm planning on getting an audiobook. Then I also want to read my self-improvement book in January - new years resolutions and improvements go hand-in-hand! After that, I'm not sure what I'll do. I get majority of my books through the library so I guess I'll see what's available and then go from there.

I planned out the categories that I thought would be more difficult but ended up changing several along the way. I didn't really have a strategy to finish books at a certain point although I feel like the first three months of the year were spent reading books mostly for the challenge. I found that a surprising number of the books that I had on my shelves at home or on my to read list fit many of the categories so I didn't really have to try to hard to finish the challenge. To date I'm only about forty pages from finishing all the categories in the challenge. Next year I might try to finish one category per month that I find more challenging but I'm not going to sweat it too much in terms of planning out a strategy. In addition to completing the challenge I'm also aiming to read more books on my shelves at home as they are quite full at the moment!

I created an EXCEL Spreadsheet at the beginning of the year and highlighted each category as "red" (read) and "yellow" (unread). I had a column for the title of the book, author, XX once I read it (to make sure I didn't forget to change color) and the last column was for where the book was coming from (off a Goodread list, Library, Kindle, loaned from a friend). It was easier to keep track as I completed the list - but I did it as the year progressed, not in order by category.

Heidi wrote: "I created an EXCEL Spreadsheet at the beginning of the year and highlighted each category as "red" (read) and "yellow" (unread). I had a column for the title of the book, author, XX once I read it ..."

I actually did a very similar thing but forgot to mention it. Lol, it really helped and it helped me catch that I missed a category at first.

For the 2015 challenge, I planned everything out before the start of the year and made changes, as needed. This year, though, I'm not planning nearly as much. I have books in mind for limited categories (e.g., Oprah Book Club, National Book Award, etc.), but that's it. I think I'll do better this year if I play it more by ear and read what I want at the moment and fill in categories as I go.

My strategy was to pick all the books then read. I started in February, so I included books I had already read, then added from there. My mom helped me pick books I would like. I didn't read them in any order. I tend to have an audiobook which I listen to I think he car to and from work, and as I quilt; and a book or two I'm reading.

Since I teach reading, my students have to read a book a week for homework, they challenged me to do the same. This motivation really helped.

I am excited to start the next challenge tomorrow.

When I first started the challenge last year, I wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to stick with it. To motivate myself, I picked some books that I really wanted to read. After a couple of books, I really bought into the process and started looking ahead at the rest of the list and coming up with a list of ideas.

My main strategy is to use variety. I try to avoid reading too many long books or too many short books in a row. Too many long ones really slows me down and makes me lose motivation, and too many short ones just prevents me using them later on to break up a bunch of longer books.

I also try to avoid reading several books in a row about the same kind of topics. This year, I'm doing PopSugar and GoodReads' Around the Year challenges. Between the two of them, there are several categories that call for books about historical events/major world events/historical fiction. It's hard not to automatically go for the "easy" option -- I've found quite a few books about the Holocaust, but I'm trying to push myself to switch some of them out for other topics. Even if I spread these books throughout the year, there should be more than enough other major events to find an interesting book about.

Other than that, my main strategy was just to find books that fit the category but interested me at least somewhat. It was difficult with certain categories, and I think it will be even more difficult this year given some of the categories.

I also tried to avoid re-reading books as much as possible, unless the category specifically calls for it. I re-read a book with more than 500 pages (House Rules by Jodi Picoult) as my first one just to get me motivated to read, and aisde from that the only books that were re-reads were children's books (George's Marvelous Medicine, Wayside School, and Peter Rabbit).

I'm on the fence about using children's books/picture books in general. I used a few last year, but at times it did feel like a "cheat." I'm not sure why, since the challenge never put any limits on what kind of books were allowed. This year, since I'm doing two challenges at once I'm a little more open to different kinds of books, including graphic novels, children's books, etc.

This year, I'm using a similar strategy although I've "committed" loosely to many of the book ideas much earlier on, just because I want to order them from the library. But I'm open to changing and rearranging books as I go.

It worked well for me last year -- I finished my whole challenge by early November.