I am in the unfortunate and wonderful position of being both in school and in an agency internship. Both of these are some of the most reading intensive things I imagine a person can ever do. On top of this, I read for fun like a crazy person and am at the Evanston Public Library almost every day. (EPL represent!) So, sometimes I have to sit back and prioritize my work, my day, and my reading, to make sure that I accomplish everything that needs to be done and (hopefully) more.
Here’s how I prioritize my reading:
1. Textbooks for school – math and physics and such. Not exactly riveting.
2. Books for school – These are much more fun and so I save them for later
3. Your Manuscripts! – Every so often I get sent a full manuscript to review. These have the dual function of being the highlight of my day and required for my job. Awesome!
4. Adult books – So I can write book reviews for my school’s online newspaper.
5. Your Queries – Super Awesome Amazing Agent gets about 4-5 queries a day, and it’s my job to sort through it and separate the awesome from the not-so-awesome. This can take a looooong time, especially if the queries have been building up for a while.
6. Picture Books for fun – most of the submissions we get are picture books, and so it’s important that I have a good feel for what’s currently on the market.
7. Middle Grade for fun – second most popular category is middle grade.
8. Young Adult for fun – YA is my favorite type of book, but also takes most time and isn’t submitted nearly as often. Sad face. But that just motivates me to work extra hard reading all the above so I can get to the good stuff!
If I’m lucky I’ll be able to do a little from each category every day, but sometimes I get too excited and skip ahead (Divergent anyone?). Keeping this mental list helps keep me on track! How do you prioritize your reading?
I rotate between something I read for pure fun, then something I "should" read - maybe it's a book in my genre that turns out to be pure fun after all, maybe it's a classic that's been on my list forever, or maybe it's a nonfiction book about brain function or history. Then there's the stuff I have to read at work, techie stuff about accounting programs.
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