Moments Inked Planner : Reading Goal Tracking

Two posts today -- 

For Papertrey's December Release Countdown Day Five, Love All Ways, please click HERE.

I'm excited to share a planner idea with you today, but first ... I know many of you are anxiously awaiting the 2016 Moments Inked Planner release. The big reveal is tomorrow at 7 am EST on Nichole's blog. I think you will welcome the changes and improvements, which are based on customer feedback! That's all I can say right now ;) 

Back to the current planner and today's post -- reading goal tracking.

I used to be an avid reader, but not so much in the last couple of years. I miss books, though, so I set a goal at the beginning of the year to read a minimum of 24 books this year, something I felt was reasonable and achievable and therefore a good place to start.

In early Fall, as I was mentally checking in on my progress, I decided to add a book section to my planner, so that I could have a pretty place for goal tracking and list-making. 

For my section divider, I created a colorful bookshelf using the Bibliophile stamp set and Bibliophile dies. The bookend was done with the Fancy Bookends die.

I decorated the back with a simple strip of Ombre Stripes paper, and another quote from Bibliophile.  I haven't written anything on the back, but my idea was to have basic reference info like mine and my family's library card numbers (handy when trying to log in to the library's website), as well as my kids' school library days noted (which I always forget -- more on that below).

For the actual tracking, I decided to embrace the "memory" part of the Moments Inked Planner, and gave it more of a visual, scrapbook look. I did this really just thinking it would be fun and pretty and colorful to look back on sometime in the future. What I found was that it also motivated me to stay on track as well. I had places ready for 24 books, and I really wanted them filled!

For the tracking pages, I used the lined pages that are included in the Notes section of the planner. For each book read, I printed out the book jacket, added a Sew Stylish Number, the name and author, and a brief note about why I read that particular book. I'm not sure what I'll do with my planner after the year is over, but if I don't save it, I can easily pull these pages out and incorporate them into a scrapbook album.

So as I mentioned, I initially created spots for 24 books. At the time I created the section, I had read 21 books. As I continued reading, I jotted down the name and author in its spot, but I wanted to wait until I had accumulated a few more titles before printing book jackets. It's just more efficient than printing off book jackets one at a time.  

I met my goal (yay) and then some. Since I don't have numbers cut for these extra books yet, I'm using Divided sticky note tabs as placeholders.

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While I was at it, I created a few other book-related things for my planner. The To Read list was stamped with Listed images onto a Listed diecut. 

I mentioned above that for some reason I have a hard time remembering my kids' library days. They are always bummed when they don't get to check out anything new because they didn't bring their already-checked-out books back. I used one of the Bibliophile dies to create some adhesive die-cuts to help me remember library days. The stamping is a combination of images from Bibliophile and text from Bibliophile and the Moments Inked: Planner Banners stamp set.

I actually love this shape for planner reminders, and it fits in the daily boxes beautifully!

I used another Bibliophile die to create a little "currently reading" tab. Having this right on the weekly spread has been a nice reminder to read, or, in last week's case, to choose the next book. (I'm thinking it's going to be All the Light We Cannot See.)

These are adhesive, too, so easily moved to the next week if needed.

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That's it for me today. Hope you're inspired to customize your planner for your own goal tracking!