Reading Journal for Notion

Stay on top of your reading goals this year with a Notion template designed to help you track and organize your reading life.

I designed this template to look good regardless of which device you use to track your reading. Whether you use a computer, a tablet, or track your reading on your phone – this template will work across all of your devices.

This reading tracker uses a database with more than twenty properties to help you organize all of the books you’ve read and the books you want to read. It includes a book review template to help guide your thoughts, as well as pre-made pages for storing book lists, recommendations, and a place to keep track of any books on your wishlist.

You can track monthly and yearly goals, and create a monthly TBR separate from the rest of your to-be-read pile. If you frequently use your library, you can add return dates, and the database will sort your TBR by the earliest date, so you won’t run out of time to read that book!

How to Use this Template

When you first duplicate this template, the best place to start is by setting some goals. At the very top, you can set a goal for the number of books you want to read for the year (or what’s left of it), and a little further down there is a reading goal section you can use to add more specific goals.

On the Yearly Stats page, you can set a goal for the number of books you want to read each month, and update it as you finish them. You’ll be able to see how far you are in your reading goals each month at the bottom of the main dashboard.

💡 NOTE: You will need to generate a new stats database for each year and change the database source to the current year on the main dashboard.

Next, you want to go to your Bookshelf, which is one of the first pages at the top of the main dashboard. The bookshelf database has already been divided into several categories for you to organize all of the books you have read and want to read.

Along the tabs at the top, you’ll want to navigate to the To Be Read shelf so you can start adding books. This database has 24 properties so you can track as much (or as little) of your reading as you like. Feel free to delete any properties you don’t plan to use.

Once you’ve decided what you want to read for the month, you can change the Status of the book from To Be Read to Current TBR, or Currently Reading if it is the book you are, well, currently reading. It will disappear from the To Be Read section of your bookshelf, but don’t worry – it’s still in the database. The book you are currently reading will appear at the top of the main dashboard, and the books on your current TBR pile will also be added to the current TBR section on the main page.

If you want to track your progress in the book, you can’t delete the Pages Read & Total Pages properties for page progress, or Minutes Listened & Length (in Minutes) for audio progress.

The Tags property is a catch-all place for you to add other pertinent information that might not fit anywhere else, like if the book is an arc you need to review, a favourite of yours, any tropes you want to remember, or triggers you want to make note of.

Finally, the Genre property is required for the database to sort your books into their proper places, but if you’re not interested in seeing your books split up in that way, it is safe to remove it.

💡 NOTE: If you’ve previously used Goodreads to track your reading, or keep track with a spreadsheet, you can import the .xls file into your Notion Bookshelf database, but you will need to go through the database and remove any additional categories that might be be created, and manually adjust any that are incorrect.

There are several other pre-made pages to help you organize your reading, including a place for storing book lists, any recommendations you get, and a wishlist to make note of any books you want to buy or borrow.

The main page is where you can see most of your information at a glance, including your reading progress, your current read, your current TBR, and your goals.

The Current TBR section is a place for you to specifically mark books you want to read in the near future to separate them from the rest of your TBR pile. If you frequently borrow books from the library, there is a property for the return date, and the list on the main page will automatically sort the books in order of the earliest return date so you know which book to pick up next!

Beneath the current TBR section is the monthly progress section, which pulls from your Yearly Stats database. If you include a goal for the number of books you want to read that month and regularly update it as you read, the formula will calculate your progress so you can tell how well your reading year is going.

And lastly, the bookshelf database includes a basic review template for you to use, but feel free to take freeform notes or create your own.

Happy Reading!

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