Does Tracking Reading Make It Less Enjoyable?

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Connie Pan is simply a writer and exertion from Maui, Hawai‘i. She earned an MFA successful fabrication from West Virginia University and a BA successful originative penning from Grand Valley State University. Her penning has appeared successful Bamboo Ridge, Carve, HelloGiggles, PRISM International, The Billfold, and elsewhere. An excerpt from her novel-in-progress was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Instagram: @csnpan Twitter: @panlikepeter

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Deep into the summertime of 2014, I began tracking my speechmaking successful a cherished spreadsheet. I started elemental by logging dates, titles, and authors. I created columns for notes and references. In them, I recorded what resonated with maine from an underwater country to details astir flowers, food, and music; that a publication made maine laugh; however I archetypal learned of the work; which bookstore I recovered the rubric at; favourite essays; trade decisions I admired from communicative structures to quotation mark-less dialogue.

As my enactment became much entwined with books, my tracking expanded successful detail. I documented genres, partial to implicit plots, important events, settings, quality names and relationships, contented warnings, themes, comparable titles, and more. In April of 2019, I joined Goodreads and the Goodreads Reading Challenge, a speedy tradition. Since that motivated determination to way my speechmaking 9 Augusts ago, my yearly speechmaking has risen twelvemonth aft year.

At Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Professor Jordan Etkin researched the effects of tracking activities including coloring, walking, and speechmaking (which we astatine Book Riot are, of course, extra funny in). Overall, Etkin “found that portion measuring prompts america to bash more, it tin marque america bask activities less.” Etkin observed that portion tracking coloring, walking, and speechmaking tin “increase” activity, “[e]njoyable activities tin go astir similar a job, by focusing connected the outcomes of things that utilized to beryllium fun.”

Typically successful my speechmaking life, I juggle 1 fiction, nonfiction, and poesy title. Every day, I update my speechmaking advancement connected Goodreads, which stirs up bully feelings. In January, my yearly Goodreads extremity tin loom successful my caput until I get connected way oregon ahead. As I read, I jot down copious notes, which I besides see tracking my reading, successful a papers oregon connected a Post-it. For my idiosyncratic spreadsheet, I compile those comments, connected average, weekly. Of everything, perpetually gathering and organizing accusation sometimes frustrates me. Occasionally, I procrastinate, and the accusation collects, which tin induce stress. Because everything I work is perchance for work, I way my speechmaking 100% of the time, adjacent erstwhile I reread. In case, flowers forbid, this Virgo missed something.

audiobook screen of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa

So, I marque an exception. This year, I’ve spent truthful overmuch clip speechmaking new-to-me books, stopping each leafage oregon 2 to grounds speechmaking observations, that I recovered myself craving a sweeping saga to flight with. Missing a doorstopper’s value successful my hands, I instrumentality to One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1 of my astir reread novels, exclusively for pleasure. Why not 1 of the myriad unread titles connected my shelves oregon publication cart oregon message pile? My thinking: If I crook to thing familiar, I won’t bookmark it to scribble impressions oregon consciousness compelled to update my speechmaking progress.

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For the much-needed break, I perceive to the audiobook portion speechmaking on successful my paperback transcript — which is, according to my love, “more sticky flags than pages” — to engaged my hands, trained to seizure details. As planned, I don’t pen notes. Some bonuses: I disregard texts, emails, and societal media. Rarely distracted, the absorption of it resembles a day with myself: specified saccharine attraction and self-care. I deliberation I’ve discovered a caller preferred mode of reading.

book screen of Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

As the communicative of the Buendías successful Macondo streams into my ears, I travel on with my eyes, appreciating the rainbow of highlighted substance and the circles I drew successful the margins. In furniture with Gabriel García Márquez’s caller 1 new-moon morning, 4 dried, pinkish petals flitter from betwixt the pages onto my stomach, and it seems magical. Mainly, I near the publication connected my nightstand and floated disconnected to dreams aft a chapter. And yet, I, retired of musculus representation and possibly obsession, inactive updated my advancement successful Goodreads. Granting myself a tiny intermission from my extended tracking refreshed me, thing I anticipation to bash much with go-to rereads and books destined to go go-to rereads, similar Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel; Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s Sabrina & Corina; K. Iver’s Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco; and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing.

In Out With the Spreadsheets! On Simplifying My Reading Tracking, Patricia Thang, aft abandoning “meticulous information tracking and spreadsheets” for signaling speechmaking with a pen and notebook, writes,

“Right now, I’m speechmaking what I privation to read, erstwhile I privation to work it, for arsenic agelong (or arsenic little) arsenic I tin grip astatine a fixed time. And for me, that’s each speechmaking should be. I request to larn to bask it again archetypal earlier trying to look astatine it done my analytical lens erstwhile more, if astatine all.”

Naturally, I wonderment astir different Rioters’ stances connected tracking their reading. In a little survey, each 35 participants reported tracking their reading. Twenty-two participants way their speechmaking connected Goodreads. Of those, 11 enactment successful the Goodreads Reading Challenge. Fourteen usage Book Riot’s Reading Log, 8 usage idiosyncratic spreadsheets and documents, six usage Storygraph, and 8 usage different modes specified arsenic Bookly and penning successful a slug diary by hand.

On average, 12 participants way their speechmaking daily, 9 sporadically, 9 weekly, 2 monthly, and 5 picture different frequencies: 3 aft they decorativeness a book, different aft “3ish” books, and different a fewer times a week. Twenty-one reported tracking their speechmaking makes them consciousness happy, 10 inspired, 8 neutral, 5 discouraged, 3 stressed, and 2 mentioned feeling different emotions. One subordinate expressed experiencing “all” of the listed emotions. Three consciousness affirmative emotions due to the fact that tracking their speechmaking helps them retrieve and entree what they person read. Another subordinate feels blessed oregon stressed depending connected the authorities of their titles-to-review shelf, different experiences “ALL THE GOOD FEELINGS” from blessed and inspired to “excited” and “accomplished” and “calm,” portion different “gasp[s] successful joyousness and sometimes disbelief” erstwhile reflecting connected past reads. Since tracking their reading, nary 1 reported solely a alteration successful their reading. Fourteen saw an summation and 15 a variation.

As usual, Rioters continually animate me. In the above-mentioned Our Reading Lives essay, Thang reminds maine to work what and when I privation to, to question and prioritize enjoyment. So, I pen a reminder to myself to work solely for pleasance successful my planner. And erstwhile asked astir patterns successful their speechmaking for the survey, six Rioters commented that tracking speechmaking not lone inspired them to work much but to besides work much diversely and widely. A extremity to ever clasp close, thing to everlastingly strive for. Like america astatine Book Riot, whether you way your speechmaking oregon not, whitethorn the clip you walk with books mostly bring you happiness.

If speechmaking tracking and challenges intrigue you, delight cheque retired Introducing The 2023 Reading Log, 10 Book Journals to Track Your Reading successful 2023, and The Joy Of Reading Challenges Is Reading by yours truly.

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