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It's a very mixed bag for me.
I had five challenges and a benchmark of 100 books as I tend to hit that level easily. Not this year; I'll barely make it and will have to slot in something short/quick at that. As for my main challenges, I've met three, but will fail colossally at two of them. However, I take several lessons from my failures.
First, my challenges were non-fiction heavy. I thought I might be biting off more than was chewable and I was right. I love non-fiction but it wasn't realistic, given how tired I am weeknight evenings, when I can't always give more difficult works the concentration they require.
Also, I ended up reading too many books at once, which created a feeling of being swamped that was non-productive. I like to have several books going, but at times I was up to seven (I'm at six now, alas).
Another issue was getting bogged down in one particular book, for example a turgid biography of Cromwell by Antonia Fraser (which I picked because I thought it would be Cromwell-light!). I didn't abandon it as the information was there, but it pretty much torpedoed my 17th century challenge. I didn’t want to start another on-topic book before I finished it, but that one dragged on and on.
So! This is what I’ve learned. I need to make my limited reading time more productive and try to get my numbers back up. I don't watch tv or game, but I do tend to read with a tablet at hand. I read something and want to look up background info or verify something, that leads to checking something else and maybe a third thing and while I’m online I might as well dip into my email and fora…. Half an hour or more later, I’m back to my book and there goes the evening. So I will leave tablet thingies across the room. If the looking-up isn’t pressing enough to get up and retrieve a device, it can wait.
I also will try to read no more than three books at once with a solid limit at four (to provide leeway for book clubs and library items). I’ll use a three bears method: one hard book (serious non-fiction), one medium book (memoir, travel, litfic) and one light book; I’ll read the most difficult I’m up for. And while I’m good at abandoning lousy books, I need to be more proactive about backburnering books that are dragging me down, even if they’re worthwhile.
Finally, I need to have no more than three goals; five was too many to juggle mentally. I’ll divide the goals on a monthly basis so it’s easy to track. I also need to have a more realistic ratio of light to heavy reading, so there’s always something I can read as part of my goals, even if I’m tired or on the hoof. What does work for me is a benchmark of 100 books with half devoted to goals and half to free reads, so I’ll continue that. (I also don’t mind if I fudge the individual goal numbers a bit, so long as I hit the 50 mark in toto.)
I read many outstanding books in 2013, but by tightening my focus a bit I hope to avoid the lulls where nothing really appeals.
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