Kindly CitedA Reading Goal That Doesn't Punish You: Pace From Today
Short answer: If you're behind on a reading goal, recalculate from today instead of catching up. Track what you did read, and keep the goal optional.
Yearly reading challenges can be fun until you fall behind. Then the goal turns into a number you owe. Here's a gentler way to set one up, or to rescue one you already have.
Recalculate from today
Most challenge trackers compare you with where you “should” be by now. Try this instead: take what's left of your goal and divide it by the time left in the year. If you wanted 24 books, have read 10, and there are 20 weeks left, that's 14 books in 20 weeks, or about one every ten days. There are no missed pages to make up. This is our design idea, and it's how the Pace tab in our tracker works.
Or lower the goal
Changing a goal partway through the year is allowed. A goal is a tool you picked for yourself, so you can adjust it, pause it, or drop it whenever it stops helping.
Count what you did read
Seeing your progress can help. A review of 138 studies found that monitoring progress helped people reach their goals, and it helped more when the progress was physically recorded, such as written down[1]. Those studies looked at all kinds of goals, often health goals, not reading or ADHD specifically. So we lean on totals for the week, month, and year, which only ever go up, rather than on targets you can fall short of.
Plan for books taking longer than you think
People routinely underestimate how long tasks will take, even ones they've done before. Researchers call this the planning fallacy[2]. If you estimate how long a book will take, add some extra time. We add 25% in our tracker, and that number is our own guess rather than something from the research.
Attach reading to something you already do
An if-then plan links reading to a moment in your day: “When I get into bed, I read for ten minutes.” A meta-analysis of 94 tests found that plans like this had a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals[3]. Most participants didn't have ADHD and the goals varied a lot, so try it and keep it only if it suits you.
Sources
Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000025
Established (meta-analysis) 138 studies of general goals (often health goals), not reading or ADHD specifically.
Buehler, R., et al. (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.366
Preliminary as cited One multi-study paper with students. Our 25% buffer is a design choice, not a number from the paper.
Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
Established (meta-analysis) 94 independent tests across many kinds of goals, mostly with participants without ADHD.
Each DOI was checked against Crossref on 2026-10-31. Evidence labels are explained on How we cite.