So if you’ve read my blog before, then you’ll know I consider myself most successful when I have tools to help me stay on track and accountable. So for 2023 I decided to take my book reading goals to another level and made a reading journal. I watched some YouTube videos to see how different people set theirs up and how they decorated them. I also looked on Pinterest for inspiration as well.

I decided that since this is my first reading journal and I’m not sure how effective it’ll be yet, I went with functionality over design. So it’s not overly decorated, it’s not super visually interesting, and I definitely didn’t do as much with it as others did with theirs. But if this proves to be a tool that I utilize well this year, then the 2024 reading journal will be even better!

So here’s a look at my 2023 reading journal!

I’ve had this journal for a long time now, and I never knew exactly what to do with it. When I decided to make the reading journal, I looked at this one and it immediately clicked. It has lots of lines so I was able to fit pages on all one side and still had some room to add stickers if I chose to.

So I went fairly simple with the cover page. I wanted to add a quote I liked, so I chose this George R.R. Martin quote that says’ “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads only lives one.” And then I added some star stickers just to jazz the page up a bit.

So the next page I’m not going to show because it’s a huge spoiler for tomorrow’s post! But I dedicated the next page to the books I want to read in 2023. How many books and what ones they are will be revealed tomorrow!

As much as I love reading, I find it to be a difficult thing to do (just like writing). It’s probably because taking the time to just sit down and relax with a good book isn’t always possible… I’m sure it is, but I just haven’t found a solid routine for it. So I made this page as a motivator to read everyday, coloring in the pages as I go along. I think being able to color in the daily spot will be a great motivator to me to read every day. But we’ll see!

I saw one YouTuber have this in their reading journal and I thought it was an interesting idea. I haven’t done a Read Around the Alphabet challenge since elementary school, so I decided to give it a go as an adult!

I love BINGO. I know it’s a luck based game and that there’s no real way to be good at it, but I still enjoy it. I tried to make this a good combination of things that are easy to achieve and things that will be a bit more challenging. The only rule I have for this is that I cannot use the same book to fill in multiple squares. So for example, if I read a book that has excellent reviews and was written by someone under 30, I have to choose which square to fill in. My ultimate goal is to get a coverall BINGO, in which all the squares are filled in. But we’ll see how it goes!

The title of this page pretty much sums it up- It’s the list of every of book I read throughout the year. I put the star rating next to it as well so I can keep track of which books I enjoyed and which books I didn’t. I gave myself four blank pages for this and can fit 37 books on each, so that would equal to 148 books read throughout the year. I don’t think I’ll hit that many, but I’d rather have the space and not need it than need it and not have it!

This last page is my least favorite because of its design. I ran out of one type of sticker and had to use another, and it just looks really poorly thought out. I may end up redoing it, but at the same time it’s a page I’ll only be looking at 12 times throughout the year, so I’m not sure it’s a super big deal. But I wanted this page to keep track of how many books I read per month and what my absolute favorite book of the month is.

So there you have it- my 2023 reading journal! I’m excited to use it and see how well it does or doesn’t work for me.

If anyone has any book suggestions that can help me with book BINGO, I would love to hear them! What fun reading challenges are you doing this year? Let me know! I hope everyone has a great day!