Doing Past Challenges After the Fact

[Kylie]

i only discovered the challenge late this year but have downloaded all the previous challenge prompts and gradually going thu my to read list (goodreads of course) and matching up prompts with books off my list.

[Meg]

Lisa wrote: "Hi all. So I’ve now finished the 2016 challenge. That means this year I’ve finished 2019, 2015 and now 2016. I’m at 17/52 on 2017 and 3/50 for 2018. I’m just going to keep plugging away and see how..."

Wow, that's impressive!

[The Chapter Conundrum (Stacey)]

So I discovered PS in 2018 and finished the 2018 & will finish 2019 soon! My 2020 plan is also already finished and ready to go after New Years! I think for me it would be a little overwhelming to go back and do ALL of the prompts from 2015-2017 since I didn't track my reading during those years and have no idea what I read and would be starting from scratch. BUT what I might do instead is go back and pick out all the prompts for books I wouldn't fill accidentally and make up a challenge for myself with those because for me the entire point of the challenge is to really broaden my reading and I think doing this satisfies the end game goal for me. :)

Usually when the list comes out every year, I classify all the prompts into 1 of 3 categories:

-Easy (Green): I'll fill this without even trying to specifically
-Medium (Orange): I may or may not fill this without trying
-Hard (Red): I definitely have to plan a specific book for this OR at least do some research to find something that fits.

I'll go back over 2015, 2016 & 2017 and classify all the prompts and challenge myself to read at least all the reds...maybe all the oranges as well or maybe just some of the more interesting orange ones. :) Depends how many reds & oranges I come across!

[Lisa]

Just finished my last book for the 2017 challenge. I did the 2019 challenge for the first time this year and then went back and completed 2015, 2016 and now 2017. I have also done 25/50 of the prompts from 2018. I’ll finish it sometime in 2020 when I finish the 2020 challenge. It’s been fun. Thanks for the idea.

[Leona]

I never thought about going back to finish. I did not finish 2019 and may try to do it.

[Sallie]

I will end up this year 3 short, which I hope to complete in January. This was my first year and I was proud of myself! Going for gold in 2020. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

[Stephanie]

My end of the year update: Life happened this year and I went 4 months without reading anything, so I was only able to read about half as many books as I intended to, which put me quite a bit behind my goal of catching up in 2020.

I'm currently one third of the way through my 2017 list (and have read 10 books from 2018 and 5 from 2019). I am on track to catch up in 2022 if I can manage to read 100 books per year. Hoping not to have another dry spell as long as this year's.

[Ruth]

Ruth wrote: "I first discovered the PopSugar reading challenge in the summer of 2016, and I started out by just seeing how many of the books I'd read that year already fulfilled the prompts. Then I went on to c..."

So funny to find my response 2.5 years later! I decided, just now, to look over the POPSUGAR 2015 list and see if I've EVER read books that fulfill the prompts on there. I've completely all but "a book you were supposed to read in school but didn't." I was a good student and there are zero books that fall into that category, and I've been out of school for decades at this point. If you want to expand it to "books that most people read in school but you didn't" then I can definitely count the books my kids read in school (some of which were never assigned to me) that I read as well so I could help them with English assignments or just have a meaningful book discussion with them.

I feel better now. I've fulfilled all the POSUGAR reading challenges from 2015 through 2022, and I'm all geared up to start the 2023 challenge this coming week.

[Michelle]

I found out about this challenge in 2022. So, I finished the 2022 challenge and now I'm working on prior years (while now working on the 2023 challenge). If something doesn't fit the 2023 list, it seems like it may fit a different challenge in a different year. :)

[Andrea]

Now I'm regretting seen this thread :|

[Teri]

Andrea wrote: "Now I'm regretting seen this thread :|"

It takes so little to trigger a compulsive reaction in many readers.

[Andrea]

Teri wrote: "Andrea wrote: "Now I'm regretting seen this thread :|"

It takes so little to trigger a compulsive reaction in many readers."

In deed lol. Either way I'm taking it with ease, because since 2017 until 2022 I read mostly nothing, so I'm gonna be taking baby steps. Hope to catch up in two years, being positive (?

[Sara]

I was using the 'favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge' to fit ones I had skipped from past years to catch up, a little bummed not to see that as prompt this year.

[Aquaria]

I found the Pop Sugar list last year, and I appear to be in good company for the compulsive readers who have gone back to the old challenges for inspiration.

I'm a super-fast reader, get in at least 200 books a year, so ticking the boxes for previous lists won't take long. I'll probably get the last of them done next year. Might be able to pull them off if the stars align this year for any open spaces in my current TBR list.