When something is important to us, we pay attention to it. Whether it’s observing our growing garden, continuously collecting recipes for a new family meal, tracking our daily water consumption or scheduling daily check-ins with a loved one, energy flows where our attention goes.

So, if we want something to grow and gain momentum over time, we must continuously pay attention to it. And one of the best ways to pay attention to something over time is to track it in a very tangible way. This not only forces our attention to what matters most, it offers a very real and very concrete reminder to do so. 

Enter the reading log. 

Now, you might already be conjuring up old-fashioned ideas of what a reading log is based on your experiences as a student: those dreadfully boring charts of the books you read, the pages and minutes you logged and artificial summaries of what you learned. These logs were typically focused on accountability to ensure you completed your daily reading homework, rather than to celebrate the books read and the ways the books were changing how we thought about ourselves and the world. 

This is NOT what tracking your reading should look like today (or back then, for that matter). 

Reading lists, trackers and/or logs should be extensions of our own preferences as readers so we can bring a renewed sense of energy to our reading life. They might be printed or digital, track titles or numbers of pages read, be simple or in-depth and rely on text or images. 

Think for a moment about how you make your reading life visible. Do you keep a private, printed list of titles or do you share books read on social media instead? Do you showcase your finished books on a shelf in your home or do you use a digital book-sharing site to proclaim your titles? Do you browse your borrowing history on your library card or celebrate your Amazon and Bookshop orders instead? Regardless of how we do it, making our reading life visible matters. And tracking our reading lives over time matters, too. 

The secret is finding a way to track your reading life that works for you. Here are a few options to consider:

  • Create a list: Open your notebook or grab a loose piece of paper and keep track of the books you finish over a dedicated period of time. If this sounds perfect for you, you might like to download the printable reading log I use in my own notebook. 
  • Use sticky notes: Every time you finish a book, write the title on a sticky note and adhere to a dedicated notebook or even wall space. As your sticky notes grow, arrange and rearrange them to learn more about your patterns as a reader. 
  • Try a Bookish Spreadsheet: Spreadsheets offer a unique way to track our reading lives. As readers, we can track titles and authors, ratings and reviews, format and source and so much more. And the best part? That data is instantly transformed into helpful analytics to help us choose what to read next. Here’s my own personal bookish spreadsheet. 
  • Go social: When you close the final page of a book, snap a picture of the cover and post to your social media feed. You might even add a personal reflection of what you loved and who might want to read it next. 
  • Join a Site: There are multiple social platforms that prompt readers to track their reading lives, grow their bookish habits and share them with others, like Goodreads and The Story Graph. These sites not only help you track your reading, but help you analyze and share your reading with others, too. 

How do you know which one is best for you? Well, it depends on your purpose. If you simply want to keep track of the titles you read for your own personal reflection, then a page in your notebook or a wall full of sticky notes might be the best way to go. If you want to go deeper into your reading life and reflect not just on titles and authors, but genres, ratings, format and more, then a digital spreadsheet might work for you. Or, if your primary goal is to share your reading life with others, then a reading log on social media or a bookish social platform is likely best for you. 

Regardless of the method you choose to track your reading, the important part is that YOU ACTUALLY TRACK YOUR READING. Right?! Energy flows where attention goes and your reading log acts as a tangible reminder to carve out time for your reading life over time. And tracking your reading over time is the best way to spark reflection on your reading life, reflection that will actually help your reading life grow. 

Once you’ve tracked your reading over a period of time, you can ask yourself the following:

  • How many books did you read?
  • Which authors did you enjoy most?
  • What genres did you choose to read?
  • What topics did you choose to read about?
  • How did you feel about the books I read?
  • Did you abandon any books? Why or why not?
  • What gaps do you see that you could close with your next book?

Tracking our reading helps us celebrate the reader we are becoming, not just the reader we’ve left behind, but this kind of readerly reflection would not be possible without a tangible look at your reading life, first. And this tangible look at your reading life wouldn’t be possible unless you paid attention to it in the first place. 

So, how do you currently track your reading and what might you try after reading the possibilities in this post?