Starting a reading journal! Tips?

[Mo :)]

Hello! I have been wanting to start a reading journal for years now, and am finally putting my foot down and starting it. I am just making it digitally on a Google Doc for now, but once I get a hang of what I'm doing I'm hoping to do a more physical approach.

Any tips for how I should or what I should track? Cute ways to keep it interesting?

Or anyone also looking to start a reading journal this year?

[♡Addison♡]

I usually make several sections for some categories of different notes and a spot for my favorite quote(s)
To make it fun I like to write my notes in the colors of the book cover so it all matches.

[lauraシ︎]

Hey! Some cute ideas:
-keep track of what you read in every month
-have a page for 5 star reads
-if you loved a book you can have a page for it, write your review and maybe print some photos you find connected to the book
-and i think that doodles are cute if you don't know what to write in a blank space

[Rori]

I started doing it this year I've seen a lot of amazing ideas in TikTok but not all of them apply to me. Some of them were too much and I stopped doing them or filling them out. The only ones I liked are:
1. The squares with numbers and you can color them to the rating you give to the book you've finish. I think they call this Book Tracker

2. Small squares equals to 365 Days of the year also color them if I read today or not.

3. a schedule with each month and then I'll add the amount of books I've read in each month+ Average rating + total pages + Favorite book of this month

4. And lastly T.B.R 2024 I have 6 books I want to read in this month. (of course I'm going to read more than that but these 6 book I want to finish this year)

[Whaiora]

I have a digital reading journal on my iPad that I bought from Etsy for < $5 and transferred to good notes or notability, it’s super easy to use and sooooo many sections it’s crazy. I would suggest doing this and finding one decorated to your liking or finding a plain one to decorate yourself if you get overwhelmed trying to digitally build your own :)

[Eg]

In mine i started a system to put beside the name of a book to give a small rating X for bad would not read again, O for okay pretty average but liked it, and V as a check to say I loved it.

[M]

Hey! Would love to give my two cents. My first downfall personally with my reading journals was being perfectionist. I had to accept that the complicated, in-depth spreads I wanted to do were keeping me from filling them out fully and decorating them because I sort of dreaded all the work I had to do. I just got a simple, hard-bound notebook from Target I can use for a while and dedicate one page to a simple review, including star rating in stickers(I use themed washi and stickers from my pre-existing scrapbooking collection to decorate). Even though I don't want it to be so simple, it's easier for me to handle and uses up old scrapbooking supplies. I get to be creative and have a journal without worrying about printing new templates or messing up a previously-made template. Lmk if you want pictures or examples from my personal journal!