Sitting beside me is a stack of books and I am actively reading about half of them! Maybe it’s my creative mind, but I rarely read a single book at a time, I almost always have several going at once.
I find that helps me to always be reading and learning. If I only have one book to read, and I have some time to read but don’t really want to read that one, then I don’t read at all. Having several in my stack, with various bookmarks or dog-eared pages, means I pretty much always have at least one I’m interested in reading at the moment.
However, having so many going at one time makes it hard for me to track mentally how many I’ve read. It also means that the stack gets bigger over time as I pull out or buy new books, and eventually, I have to put them back on the shelves simply to clean up. Then I start a new stack!
I needed a way to keep track of what I’m reading, and what I’ve read.
Why keep track? Because for one, it’s fun, but mostly it’s so good for me to have a record of how recently I read a book, especially for business books that I want to re-read each year. If I haven’t tracked it, I might go several years before re-reading it when I wanted to have it on my yearly rotation.
I’ve seen book trackers in bullet journals and on Pinterest and ended up so inspired I decided to make my own version (because I wanted little succulents on the shelves :) ) And of course, in true Heidi fashion, once I get inspired I just can’t stop until I get all the ideas out. So what started as one reading tracker, became six! You can find these Book Goals trackers HERE!
The Trackers
50 Books on the Bookshelf
First, I made the 50 books on the Bookshelf version. Oh my, it is so cute I can hardly stand it. I worked in several of the little potted succulents that I love. (Side note, those little potted succulents were the beginning of a whole new kind of goal tracker!).
100 Books on a Bookshelf
Then on to the 100 books on a Bookshelf version. This one the books got a little too small to easily write in the book titles, so I also added a list style that you can pair with the bookshelf if you don't want to write that tiny to fit on the book. Or you could simply just use the 100 book with he is a bucket list the books you want to read, or as a running list of the books you actually have read.
Stack of 12 Books
I had someone request a tracker for 12 books because their goal was to read one new book a month. I couldn't imagine the bookshelf with only 12 books, so I decided to make that one a nice stack of books. I love this stack of books because the books have a little more detail. I'm using one of these for my business book list to read in 2021, and I wrote in the names of all the books I for sure want to read this year. Then I went ahead and because I love coloring I colored a portion of each book ahead of time. Then when I finish reading it, I'll color in the rest of the book - basically the space behind the book title.
I made a similar version for 25 books.
So, you could use just one of these, or you could use some sort of a combination of all of them. I love the idea of a reading time counter. The 100 books on bookshelf could be a time tracker as well as an individual Book Tracker. Simply decide how much time each little book on the Shelf equals, and then color them in as you read that much time? An easy measure is 10 minutes per book on the Shelf, which went full would mean you have read 1000 minutes. This could be great for you and your kids to track how much time you spend reading.
Companion Book Lists (50 and 100 Books)
Both the 100 Books on a Bookshelf, and the 50 Books on a Bookshelf, have companion book lists. I did design the Book Goals Lists to be paired with the Bookshelves, so you'd have more room on the list to write the book of titles if you don't want to try to cram in the book titles on the bookshelf books themselves. But you can really easily use the list as bucket list goals of books you want to read, and then use the bookshelves to color in the number of those books that you have read, you can also color them in on the list when you've read them.
We have so many books for homeschool that I could probably create a list of 50 books per topic. Even if we don't own the books, say there are library books, I can still add them to the list of topics we've been reading on.
It could be used for audio books too. Listen, audiobooks are not cheating! If you listen to an audio book you have effectively read that book (in fact, may people are auditory learners and get much more out of listening than reading with their own eyes).
Ideas for Using These Trackers
Being the Rebel that I am, I don't like rules, so you can use these pages in any way that fits your goals.
With six pages, you can track all sorts of book goal lists:
- Bucket Lists of books
- A page for each category like Fiction, Personal Development, Business, Money
- Read Alouds you enjoy as a family
- Bedtime stories you read to your kids
- Required reading for school
- Tracking your time spent reading
- Summer reading challenge
- Family reading competition
- Homeschool topic lists for all ages
Many ways to use:
- You can write in the titles ahead of time (either right on the books, or use the handy list pages if you want more space) and color in a little of the book, then color the rest of the book in as you read them in any order. ~ See the stack of 12 books sample.
- Or color and write in the titles as you read. ~ See the stack of 25 books sample.
- Or simply use a page as a counter, coloring in one book for every book you complete, or for every hour you read, or even for the number of pages you read. I recommend writing on the page, perhaps in one of the bigger pots, what each book equals in regards to time or pages. I like using a different color every month for this method. ~ See the 100 bookshelf sample.
I can't wait to see how you use these super cute book reading trackers! I had so much fun making them I hope that you have an equal amount of fun using them. You can find these in the shop HERE
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What will you be tracking with these? Let me know in the comments!
