Morning Walk #32
How I track books that I'm reading with a Notion document
Hi. I’m Stepa Mitaki. Morning Walk is a personal weekly newsletter where I share some musings on tech, working on startups, productivity and some nerdy stuff.
This issue was sent out to 103 subscribers (same as last week). Last week’s issue received 242 views.
📝 How I track books that I'm reading with a Notion document
As almost any nerd, I'm a huge fan of tracking stuff and making lists. Some people even call this movement quantified self or lifelogging. I've been doing that practice for about 15 years now but fortunately found that delicate balance of not spending too much time on it and still having fun from keeping some numbers.
One of the lists that I keep is books. Books I'm currently reading, books I've read through the years, and obviously what I want to read next. Unfortunately, no one has cracked it to create the best website for that job. Yeah, there is Goodreads, but I can't stand it, to be honest. It's ugly and clumsy, and what it does best is let you quickly add a book to your reading queue and forget about it. I've seen countless attempts at making a better version of Goodreads, but none of them stayed long enough to be reliable, and almost every single one of them is as ugly as Goodreads. I appreciate Italic Type from the design perspective, but it's still missing something for me.
So about a year ago, I created a document in Notion to track the books I'm reading, and it's been great so far. Here is how my book tracking document works.
What I wanted from this little document:
I want to be able to see a quick overview of books in all three categories (to read; currently reading; finished)
I want to quickly see the number of books I've read by the years.
When I'm picking the next book, I want to see which books I have a physical copy of.
I want to be able to sort the next books by the number of pages, their year, and topic.
The time it takes to add a new book doesn't matter. I am okay to spend 2-3 minutes on it to be more mindful. The trap that I've found myself with Goodreads is that you can add a new book quickly and find yourself with a massive list of books you are not going to read.
Here is what my document looks like in practice:
No other website or app provided me with the same level of configurability as this document and this is probably my most used self-tracking document I have in my Notion.
👓 Things I've been reading/watching/enjoying
This week’s compilation will be somewhat different from what I usually share here. But these three videos are the best representation of my current mood.
It Gets Easier
The boost of motivation you might need next week.
It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you got to do it every day. That's the hard part. But it does get easier.
David Bowie on why you should never play to the gallery
I am still somewhat skeptical of the notion that "working for other people" is inherently wrong, but the rest of David's speech is so inspiring. Great reminder to never forget finding that idea inside of yourself that you want to manifest to the world somehow.
U2 feat. Luciano Pavarotti – Miss Sarajevo
Wow 😍 Found this on shuffle accidentally on my Spotify, and, oh my god, how beautiful this song is (especially with Luciano's part). And it couldn't be more relevant to what's happening right now in Ukraine. The song's backstory is about real events during the Siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1996.
Oh, and I was fortunate to hear this song live in 2010. Masterpiece!
Is there a time for keeping your distance
A time to turn your eyes away
Is there a time for keeping your head down
For getting on with your day