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After making a better commitment to fit more reading time into my schedule last year, I thought it would be helpful to finally give the Goodreads app a shot. Although my adoption of the app has been woefully late, compared to other passionate book readers, I can’t imagine going without it. Since writing a post last year about my initial impressions of Goodreads it has continued to be one of my most used apps on a daily or weekly basis. Again, what took me so long to finally become a Goodreads convert?

One of the features I’ve been utilizing often is the Update Your Progress on the app. You can either enter the page you’re currently on or an estimated percentage of how far you’ve gotten with your current book. At first I wasn’t sure if it was something I would bother to use a lot. After trying it out on a book I was reading at the time I wound up dutifully marking down my progress after I was done reading for an afternoon or evening.

Aside from marking a book as “Reading” I also found the progress update an additional self-motivator to make sure I finished my book. I’m 75% into reading this book? Let’s see if I can make it to 85% done, or if I’m feeling really ambitious, make it the rest of the book done in a day! I think having a visual aid to see where I’m at with my reading goals helps immensely. Since my book reading habits took a nosedive post-college, I’ve now managed to get it back to the levels they were when I was still studying in school. Despite the other leisure activities seeking my time and attention I’ve steadily balanced everything for the most part.

Now that I’ve embraced audio books as another format for book reading, I’ll also add them into my Goodreads app to keep track of what I’m reading or what I’ve finished reading. You could say there’s a month or two I might be reading two books at the same time—an audio book and a regular book. Sometimes my modest goal of reading five books by the end of the year increases by another five when I find I have accomplished it sooner than I thought I would. Three of the books I’ve already finished were audio books I bought through Audible. Technology can be a great thing when it encourages a healthy and voracious appetite to feed the imagination and educate the mind.

There are apps that will hold your interest until the novelty wears off, but then are those that are made with practicality and simplicity in mind. Goodreads may not be an app that will entertain you, like an app game does, or record your goofy dance to be seen on TikTok, but it serves its purpose to motivate people to keep reading, learning, and growing from the written word.

Are there any apps on your phone that have significantly improved your life in some way?