How I Use a Bullet Journal to Track My Reading

I’ve been a fan of bullet journals for a few years now, but this year I’m using my bullet journal a little differently. Last year I kept a bullet journal instead of a traditional paper planner. You can read all about my experience with it in my post about bullet journals. It worked pretty well for me, and I liked how it combined the organizational aspects of planning with journaling and memory keeping.

However, what I enjoyed most about my bullet journal was using it to record all things book-related. This year I decided to go back to a traditional planner, but create a separate bullet journal as a reading journal. So far I love it! Here’s how I use a bullet journal to track my reading.

How I Use My Bullet Journal as a Reading Journal

Supplies 

For the journal itself I use a Leuchtturm Medium Hardcover, and right now I use a black Papermate Flair Ultra Fine. I also like the black Staedtler Fineliner. For fun, I also bought some Zebra Mildliner pens to add some accent colors.

Structure 

I keep an index in the front, just like in a regular bullet journal. That way I don’t have to worry about putting things in a certain order; I can just write down the page numbers so that I can find everything. (Check out this post from The Lazy Genius to learn more about the basics of bullet journaling if you’re lost.)

Contents

I’m forever taking screen-shots quotes from books, so when I’m done with a book I record my favorite quotes in my journal so that I can delete the screen-shots. I love going back to look at favorite quotes, and I find that if they’re lost in my phone I don’t do that at all.

I also use it for reading challenges and to record books read. This year I’m doing Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Reading Challenge, so I’m keeping track of those books in a special list, as well as a more traditional book log. I use Goodreads, but I like writing down what I read as well. In my book log I include the book’s title and author, the number of pages, the year written/published, the genre, where I got the book (e.g. hardcover from library, purchased on Kindle, etc.), date finished, and star rating (which for me includes half stars…dang you Goodreads!).

Reading is a huge part of my life as a parent as well, so I also include children’s books in my reading journal. My son Jona is four and my daughter Violet is 15 months, so for now I focus on picture books for Jona. I record the books we read and include the title and author, the date published, the month read, and a happy face “liked” or a heart “loved”. (I don’t include what Jona didn’t like because usually those don’t get read more than once.)

Additionally, I keep a running list of picture books and early chapter books to read, and where I saw the recommendation (blog, Instagram, podcast, etc.). For my own books I use Goodreads as my TBR, but for some reason didn’t want to do that for kids books.

At this point that is all I include in my reading bullet journal, but what I like about a bullet journal is that I can completely tailor it to fit my needs, so if I want to add another section, I totally can. I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I enjoy getting inspiration from Pinterest on how to make pretty headers, but not feeling like I have to make a new header every day, or a calendar for every month. This type of bullet journal really suits me.

Do you keep a reading journal or a bullet journal? How do you record what you read?

Linking with Keeping it Together.