How to choose which book to read and how to tackle your massive TBR-pile!

I randomly started thinking about HOW I actually chose which book to read. And since I find my "results" kind of interesting, I thought I'd make a post all about it, because maybe I can help some of you guys!

You know that feeling you get when you try to choose a book and you instantly feel overwhelmed because there's so many? I get that feeling and sometimes I just feel to intimidated and I stop trying to find a book and just do something else - or I start reading 1 book, then I put it down, then I pick up another, and I also put that one down. I tend to do that multiple times, and sometimes I never finish the other books. The reason I do that is because I feel overwhelmed and try to read to many books at once because I want to bring down the number of unread books on my shelves. Another thing I tend to do is just choose a book I have for review (which is not bad, but I still have to read the books on my shelves).

I recently started to come up with some different strategies to tackle my massive TBR - which also means how to choose which book to read (hence the title).

1. Making a pile to choose from

Too many choices can be VERY overwhelming so you could choose maybe 10 books out of your TBR pile to choose from (and maybe put those 10 in a "special" spot, so you know exactly which ones you can choose from). That way the choice will be much easier to make since it's easier to deal with 10 than 100. 

You could choose to do a theme or just wing it!

2. TBR Jar!

I love TBR Jars, I have had a couple but since I was tired of my old one, I made a new one (you can see the post here). That way the chose aren't yours to make, the Jar is doing it for you!

3.  Pick a number

There is some different options for this one. You can get someone to say a random number (1- how many unread books you have/the number of books in your pile etc. ) and then the book that has that number is the one you have to read. You could also just count to that number on your bookshelf (in unread books) and then again, the book number x you have to read.
You could also use these options on your goodreads TBR (they already have numbers so you just have to find the number)

4. Blind Book Date!
This is kind of elaborate, but I just love it! (I would recommend getting another person to do this for you). You have to write down keywords for the book. Take The Da Vinci Code for example, you could write secret society, mystery, thriller, religion, science and adult. For Hunger Games you could write YA dystopia, unrequited love and survival. (You could also just write random words from the summary instead of keywords).

Then you just have to wrap the books, write the keywords on the paper and then choose which book to read based on the keywords. And that way you also get a "present"

5. Create a poll
This either involves a blog or another person!
With a blog: There's a widget thingy, where you can create a poll. You just have to write the titles and then your readers can choose which book they will have you to read! (I am thinking about using this one)
With another personYou choose 3-5 books that you really REALLY want to read, and then you get either your mom, dad, boyfriend, girlfriend, bestfriend or anyone else to choose which book you have to read. They could do the quick one and just choose one randomly, or they could take the time to read the blurb (or you could tell them about the book) and see which book they think you will enjoy the most.

how do you choose which book to read?