So as 2022 was setting in I decided to try something I had not tried before, it was to make a reading journal.
I had tried my hand at Art Journaling and I loved it, so it only made sense to explore Journaling a little further. It’s an interesting hobby, but besides that, it keeps me on track with my reading goals.
I did not understand how I was supposed to create and maintain a journal at first. I suppose it’s the case for everyone who’s trying to build a habit, and keep a track of it.
So here are a few tips that might help you create your journal :
In your journal divide sections into
Reading Goals: You can start by setting a monthly reading goal. The key point about setting a goal is – it should be realistically achievable. I personally think when I am starting out with building new habits, baby steps are way to go. So small bite sized bits no humongous “20 books a month” type goals to start out.
Daily Reading Tracker: The thing about habits in general is that it takes at least 21 days to build a habit, and the reason tracking your reading goals is important is firstly tracking your progress towards your monthly goal, because tracking your goals inculcates a sense of self-accountability and secondly it builds consistency because you can trace your reading pattern over a span of month your try your best to not skip reading, and make a conscious effort to read everyday.
I prefer hand-drawing things so I made my reading tracker, using the template as my reference. I added the link to the website this template was taken from in the caption of the image, it is free to download and is available in PDF format originally.
Stats – Keeping a track of how many books you read in a month and the genres you explored is also something you can include in your reading journal. Genre Stats – you can mention various genres you intend to explore in form of a list and against each genre you can add 1,+1 as you read a book in that genre.
In similar fashion you can make a list of months and against them add a 1,+1 as you finish a book.
The stats will help you keep track of your reading goals, while the tracker will help you remain consistent towards their accomplishment.
Book Report/ Review – For each book your read you can write a review/synopsis/ report. It is not really necessary to help build a reading habit, but this is more like a follow up. I prefer to write them simply because it helps me reflect back at whatever I read, and it helps me clear my head before I hop from one book to another. I get to know if I understood the subject matter and information I read (in case of non-fictional books) or if I was able to decipher underlying message the book had for me (in case of fictional books) . For the purpose of writing a review/ report the format I use is –
It is however entirely up to you, to include book reviews in your reading journal.
There is no one size fits all. We all approach similar things differently. I hope that these tips helps you with tracking your reading journey in 2022.
Happy Reading!!
Copyright- Samridhi Dutta
No part of this blog shall be republished without prior permission
the one in specs 