Goodreads

6 February 2019 by Marcia Francois 2 Comments

{reading} How I track my reading and January books read

So let’s talk about book tracking.

This is a big deal in the bookstagram world, and if you know me at all, you know I love tracking anything and everything. I learned since reading The Four Tendencies that upholders do well with monitoring, which is really what tracking is for me.

I first started tracking my reading straight after my last matric exam. For those outside of South Africa, it’s your last school year. That day was on 18 November and on that very day after my Biology exam, I went to the library, took out all the books I could and started tracking from that day nearly 27 years ago.

At some point once I’d started working, I started keeping an Excel sheet.

Fast forward to when I discovered Goodreads, and little by little but only back to 1998, I entered most of that notebook into Goodreads.

Well, how do I currently track my reading?

I track in 3 ways:

Goodreads (if Goodreads ever goes away, I don’t know what I’d do)

I use Goodreads for recording books I’ve read and to check when I’m at the library or bookshop whether I’ve read a certain book before borrowing or buying it. After thousands of books read, I can’t keep it all straight in my head 🙂

There’s an app which I use for on-the-go tracking, but I write reviews at my laptop as I need a proper keyboard.

Excel spreadsheet

I track my monthly goals on an excel spreadsheet. In the past I’ve done an exercise at the end of the year to see how many fiction vs non-fiction reads I had, and other such interesting stats, which took me hours. Hours of pleasure, but hours nonetheless. Then I got clever. So since 2017, as part of my monthly goals, I also track the numbers of non-fiction vs fiction, physical/ kindle/ audible books and so on. It’s so much easier to enter the totals in less than a minute every month and my Excel sheet is set up to total, and do % of goal, etc. so I have the annual totals quickly too.

Bullet journal

This year I started writing down the month’s books in a special notebook I call my book bullet journal. I also have notes at the back of books I want our book club to read, books I want to read on Audible, books I need to borrow through Overdrive, and so on.

It’s really lovely to have a beautiful, fun notebook, and to physically write down books I’m reading again, especially since I haven’t done so for about 15 years, if not longer.

How do you track your reading?

And as for the books I read in January…

I finished 10 books – 5 of them during the first week while I was on holiday 🙂

My final tally is 8 fiction; 2 non-fiction with 5 physical books, 1 audible and 4 Kindle versions.

Favourite reads of this month: The Friend – Dorothy Koomson (my first 5* read of the year!) and The Sunshine Sisters – Jane Green

What were your favourite reads in January?

Filed Under: Four Tendencies, Goals, Intentional living, Personal, Planning, Reading, Time management Tagged With: books, bookstagram, Goodreads, reading, tracking

9 October 2013 by Marcia Francois 2 Comments

7 reasons I love organising my reading on Goodreads

I’ve always believed in rewarding myself for doing good work.

While I was studying for my matric exams, I didn’t allow myself to read any books so after my last exam was written (18 October 1991 if memory serves me correctly), I started reading again and that’s when I started keeping a list of all the books I read.

I filled up about 3 notebooks and then I discovered Goodreads.

I’ve written on here before about Goodreads but really, I love it so much I have to gush some more.

It’s a place to organise all the books I’ve read, want to read and those I’m currently reading.
I also love it because if I’m not sure if I’ve read a book, I can do a quick search and it tells me if I read it, when I read it, and what my rating was. Such a clever idea.
If I’m thinking of buying a book, I quickly check the Goodreads reviews before clicking on the Buy now button.
Of course, my two books are also listed on Goodreads. You can mark them as read or add them to your to read pile.
It’s also super convenient to recommend books to your friends. A few of my friends have told me they love it when I send them recommendations 🙂
It’s also really nice to compare your ratings with your friends and see how compatible your reading styles are. Under my profile, click on your friends and then next to the person’s name, click on compare. Fascinating 🙂
Who doesn’t like a reading challenge? Last year my goal was 60 but when I reached that, I pushed it to 70 and finished my 70th on 31st Dec 🙂 This year my goal is 65 and Goodreads tells me I’m currently 4 books ahead.

Are you on Goodreads?

Do you keep track of the books you read?

PS apparently I’m the 4th highest reader in South Africa!

Filed Under: Intentional living Tagged With: Goodreads

28 August 2013 by Marcia Francois Leave a Comment

31 days of easy organising solutions

I feel very relieved that another one of the goals on my list is done. I think I have one business goal left – the makeover of this blog….

Nevertheless, my second book, 31 days of easy organising solutions is now available on the Kindle. Just as a reminder, you don’t actually need a Kindle to buy Kindle books – you can read them on your phone, iPad or computer.

It’s only $1,99 but somehow Amazon adds another $2 for us South Africans 🙁

And of course, Live Organised is also available on the Kindle and as a physical book.

I’ve reduced the price of Live Organised in the Amazon store too – get your copy today.

I’d like to end off by asking you to please go leave a review on Amazon or on Goodreads.

And if you want to read these and haven’t yet, please add it to your want to read shelf on Goodreads. Thanks 🙂

Here’s the Goodreads link for Live Organised and here’s the one for 31 days.

Are you on Goodreads yet?

Goodreads is the most fabulous way to organise all your books read. I’ve had instances where I logged into my Goodreads account to see if I’ve read a book I intended to buy, only to realise I’ve already read it.