What to look for in a reading habit app (and what no app can do for you)

I've tried a lot of ways to track my reading. A notebook with checkmarks. A spreadsheet. A printable tracker taped to the fridge. A few apps.

Most of them worked for about two weeks. Then I missed a day, felt bad, and stopped opening them.

So when people search for a "reading habit app," I get it. You want something that makes reading stick. Here's my honest answer on what that means.

The short answer

A reading habit app can't make you read. What it can do is make showing up cheap and visible: start a session in a couple of taps, log what you read, and see that you did it.

If an app asks for more effort than the reading itself, it will lose. Look for one that does these things:

• Starts a session fast. A timer you can start in seconds, so there's no friction before you open the book.
• Logs reading you do elsewhere. Paper, e-reader or audiobook. The app should track your reading, not replace it.
• Lets you log a missed session. Forgetting to press start shouldn't erase the day.
• Reminds you gently. One reminder at a time you pick, not a pile of notifications.
• Shows progress without a leaderboard. Reading is personal. Stats should be proof you showed up, not a contest.

If that's what you're after, Book Reading Habit is built around exactly this on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It's a reading tracker, not a place to read: you read your paper book or e-reader, and log it here.

Want to try it? Get Book Reading Habit on the App Store.

What the research says about habits

The most cited study on how long habits take is Lally and colleagues (2010). They followed 96 people building a new daily behavior and found that the time to reach automaticity ranged from 18 to 254 days, with a median of 66 days. Missing a single opportunity did not materially affect the process (Lally et al., European Journal of Social Psychology).

I find that reassuring. One bad day doesn't break the habit, and nobody gets there on a fixed schedule.

There's also good evidence for deciding in advance when and where you'll do something. A meta-analysis of 94 studies found that these "if-then" plans have a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006). For reading, that's something like: "After my morning coffee, I read for 10 minutes."

No app is in either study. The app is a helper for the plan, not the plan.

Do you need an app at all?

Honestly, maybe not. Plenty of people do fine with a paper tracker or a bookmark with boxes to tick. If you want that, go for it. I wrote about my own system in how to build a reading habit that sticks.

Where paper falls short for me:

• It doesn't know how long I actually read.
• It doesn't show me how far I am in each book.
• I forget to look at it.

If any of those sound familiar, an app is worth a try. If not, keep the notebook.

What Book Reading Habit does

I'm a solo developer, and I built this for myself first. Here's what it really does:

• Focus timer. Start a reading session with a countdown, an open-ended timer, or manual entry for sessions you forgot to start. You can pause and resume, and an interrupted session can be recovered. More in the sessions docs.
• Your library. Add books by scanning a barcode, searching, or entering them by hand, and see progress per book.
• Goals and reminders. Set a yearly book goal and a daily reading time target, and choose daily or weekly reminders at times that suit you.
• Notes. Keep notes and voice notes on each book.
• Stats and insights. See when you read best and how long your sessions run. Some of the deeper statistics are part of the paid tier.
• iCloud sync. Your library and sessions follow you across your devices.

Everything is on the features page. If you'd like company, there are also private reading groups.

What it doesn't do

I'd rather you know before you download.

• You can't read books inside it. It tracks reading you do elsewhere.
• It's Apple-only. iPhone, iPad and Mac.
• It won't build the habit for you. A timer and a reminder help. Sitting down is still on you.

A simple way to start

Pick a minimum you can hit on your worst day. Mine is 10 minutes. Attach it to something you already do. Log it, even when it's short.

That's the whole system. If you'd like help logging it, try Book Reading Habit on the App Store.

Or start with the notebook. Just start reading the books you buy.