How to track your reading

Decide what you want to know

Before you choose a method, decide what question it should answer. “How many books did I read this year?” needs only a list of titles. “Am I reading regularly?” needs dates. “How long will this book take me?” needs pages and time. Track what answers your question and skip the rest.

Books, pages or time

There are three things you can count, and each tells you something different:

• Books are the easiest to count, but they say little about effort: a 900-page novel and a 120-page novella both count as one.
• Pages are closer to effort, but pages differ from book to book, and you have to write them down.
• Time is the same unit for every book. It shows directly how regularly you read, and a timer collects it without any effort.

Time is the best everyday measure. Books are a good result to look back on; the guide on how many books you can read in a year shows how one turns into the other.

Make it take less than a minute

Tracking that takes effort stops after two weeks. Whatever you use, recording a session should take seconds: start a timer when you open the book, stop it when you close it, and note the page if you want to know your pace. Write it down right away, not in the evening.

Look at weeks and months, not days

A single day says little: you may have been ill, traveling or reading something dense. Look at the week and the month. Are there more reading days than last month? Did the minutes go up? That is the trend worth following.

Let Pagetime do the counting

In Pagetime, “Continue” starts a session for the book you are reading, and the timer keeps running on the Lock Screen. When you stop, enter the page you reached; it is optional, but without pages Pagetime cannot work out your pace. If you read without the timer, use “Add a session without the timer” on the book screen.

The Stats tab shows today’s progress toward your daily goal, your streak, a calendar of reading days, your reading time for each day of the week and a summary of each month: time read, books finished and added, and notes written. “All sessions” lists every session with its date and length. Pagetime does not add up pages in its statistics: pages are optional, so a total would always be too low.

The free version holds up to 5 books and includes 20 page scans with text recognition in total. Deleting a note does not restore a used scan. Notes and the timer work offline without an account; sync is free after signing in. A subscription removes the book and scan limits and unlocks your full stats history, year in review and folder export. Pagetime is coming to iPhone and Android; you can leave your email below to hear when it is available. Until then, a notebook with the date and the minutes is a good start.

This independent guide is published by Pagetime and is not authorized, sponsored or endorsed by Apple Inc. or Google LLC.