How I Use My Digital Book Tracker and Commonplace
I am obsessed with my digital book tracker and commonplace. Okay, obsessed might be kind of a strong term… but maybe not. I pretty much tell everyone about it – sorry, unsuspecting coworker. But it’s simply the best.
What is my digital book tracker and commonplace? And how do I use them? I’m glad you asked.
My Notion Book Tracker
I recently stumbled upon Notion, and one of my very first thoughts was, “This is going to make an incredible book tracker.” And, yes, it does. It took a while for me to set up, but I can use my book tracker to track my TBR, my current reads, my reading goals, and my reading challenges. And I can easily enter (and search) commonplace quotes as I’m reading. The cherry on top is that it’s beautiful and a joy to use.
Side Note About Notion: If you’re unfamiliar with Notion, it’s basically Google docs, Asana, and Trello combined, with some additional flair. It starts as a completely blank page, giving you complete control over how you set up your documents and databases. If you’re not super techy, it can be slightly overwhelming at first, but that’s why templates (like my book tracker) are so helpful when you’re getting started with it.
I’ve set up the book tracker as a template for others to use, too. You can download a copy for yourself in the sign up box below.
Tracking Books Read
I love that I can easily track as much or as little about each book as I’d like. When I add a new book, I add the title, author, genre, total pages, and publication year. Then, I can track the current page as I read or simply push the “Finished” button when I’m done with the book. This automatically changes the status to “Finished” and adds the “Date Finished”. Easy peasy.
(My four-year-old son wanted to include something here: robot 🤖)
My Book Wishlist
I can easily add books to my book wishlist by adding the book and then checking the “Wishlist” box. Whenever the Amazon 3 for the price of 2 sale comes around, I quickly reference my wishlist to see if any of them are part of the sale. This way I know I’m purchasing the books that I really want the most, not just what pops up as I’m searching on Amazon.
My Reading Goals Tracker
A reading goal tracker is set up on the side bar, so I can easily see my progress towards my yearly reading goal. The goal tracker automatically updates when I mark a book as finished.
Tracking My Reading Challenges
The book tracker also includes a section for reading challenges, where I can add in any challenges I’d like (or make up my own). I’ve pre-populated the template with the Lit Life reading challenges, because they’re worth doing, especially the 2024 Reading Challenge.
My Commonplace Notebook
This might be my favorite part of the whole thing. There is absolutely a beauty to keeping a handwritten commonplace notebook (and you can certainly keep both), but I’ve found that I often want to go back and reference quotes or find all of the quotes on a certain topic and that is, well, challenging with a handwritten notebook. In my Notion commonplace, however, I can quickly search for all of the quotes about “Education” or “Motherhood”, and I can quickly see all of the quotes from a single book or author. I find this immensely valuable.
Notion vs. GoodReads
When talking about my Notion book tracker, the question that comes up the most is “What about GoodReads? Why don’t you use that?” And, honestly, GoodReads has just never interested me. I’ve looked into a few times, but it never felt like the right fit for me. My Notion book tracker is mine, and I can change and add to it as I want to with absolutely no limitations. I can make it as complicated or sophisticated as possible.
Because I’ve never actually used GoodReads, I’m not familiar enough with the functionality to be able to really compare the two. But if you have thoughts on the difference between the functionality of both, feel free to send me a message over on IG. I’d love to add some of that info here.
One Last Note
As you can tell, I love my book tracker and I would love for others to be able to use it, too. If you’re interested in trying it out, you can download your own copy below. If you do decide to download the digital book tracker and commonplace, I’d love to hear your feedback on it. Happy reading!
