I’ve gone through a number of ways to track my reading over the years, but only one thing remained a constant, and that’s Goodreads. While Goodreads is great and all, it doesn’t always give you all the stats you’re looking for in one area, or provide you with fun charts. And for those of us who like to keep track of other stats (like how much money was spent, where the book came from, etc.) Goodreads doesn’t provide that for us.

Over the past few years I’ve tried to keep a few bullet journals for my reading life, but the same thing would always happen – I’d forget to log for a few weeks then have to play catch up. That got a little tedious after a while, plus I never really wrote anything down about the books themselves. I only kept track of how many pages it was, how long it took me to read it, and the number of stars I gave it.

So reading bullet journals… not quite my thing.

Late last year I came across Book Riot’s reading log spreadsheet and fell in love with it. However, it kept track of a little too much information for my liking. As in, information I didn’t care to keep track of, like the gender of the author, where it was published, what country the book is from… a lot of that stuff. So I simplified it by making my own (using theirs as a reference) and logged the information that I cared to keep track of. It’s taken some time and tweaking, but I finally got the spreadsheet done the way I like it.

Contents (featured parts italicized):

• Reading Log
• Stats
• Charts
• Acquisitions
• Library Log
• Series Tracker
• Lending Log
• Wishlist

And that’s pretty much what (part of) my reading tracker looks like. I do still use Goodreads to share reviews and what I’m reading at the moment, plus I always find good recommendations on there. Plus it’s easier to keep track of my TBR there, for now anyway.

>>Get the Spreadsheet here <<

So I’ve included a link to a blank version of my spreadsheet in case anyone wants to try it out! You can always add or remove categories to your preferences. All you have to do to save the reading tracker as your own is go to File, > Make a copy… and then save it to your Google Drive!

How do you keep track of your reading? Goodreads, journal, or spreadsheets?