Ways to Keep Track of Your Reading: Websites, Apps, Spreadsheets, or Just Some Paper

As you get started on your reading habit, there are lots of different ways to track your reading goals and your reading progress.

Most commonly, people will use the built-in features of Goodreads to mark books that you want to read, currently reading, or completed. There are also features that let you rate the book, write reviews, or organize bookshelves. All of these functions are built within the website version or the app version.

Another app/website you can use is Storygraph. I haven’t used this system much either, but they do have a section for giveaways you can enter if you want to try to win free books.

My preferred method is to use a Google Sheet that has columns that are personalized to all the things I want to track. Here’s a spreadsheet template on Google Sheets that you can save for yourself. My own personal sheet has extra columns that are specific to romance novels, like the tropes involved and the names of the main couple, plus a section for marking whether I’ve posted about the book on my social media accounts.

I’ll usually take this reading log and then write the title and author onto my physical planner. I like seeing the colorful list of books on the page. And mostly, I’m just writing it out so I can make a TikTok video about it.

For the paper planner/journalers out there, reading journals are also an option. There are tons of videos on YouTube with tutorials on how to set up your journal. Also, there are specific reading journals that you can purchase with a pre-built template for you. (Here’s one that I see a lot on TikTok: The Booktok Journal; and this one is super pretty: Always Fully Booked)

If you want to print out your own pages, there are also templates you can purchase and print out to track your reading or progress on reading challenges. I’ve linked a bunch you can buy online below. One of my favorite challenges is tracking book titles from A to Z and jotting down my progress.