Notion Reading List Template: Track Books and Notes

Why You Need a Reading List, Not Just a Reading Tracker

Most reading systems fail at the same point: the moment you hear about a great book. A friend mentions a title over coffee, a podcast guest name-drops something, a newsletter links to a must-read essay collection, and by the time you sit down to actually read, the recommendation is gone. A reading tracker records what you have already finished. A reading list solves the earlier problem, which is deciding what to read next from a backlog that never stops growing.

This guide focuses on that queue. Instead of capturing highlights and star ratings for books you have completed, you are building a curated to-read pipeline: a place to catch every recommendation, tag where it came from, rank it by priority, and always have a clear answer to the question “what should I pick up next?” You can build the whole thing on top of the free Notable Dashboard without adding a single new tool.

Adapting the Notable Dashboard Pattern

The Notable Dashboard runs on one core idea: a single database surfaced through multiple filtered views. Its Tasks & Projects section, for example, is not several separate lists. It is one database of items with a Status, a Priority, a Due Date, and Tags, displayed through different views that filter and sort the same underlying records. Your reading list works exactly the same way. You create one Books database, and then you slice it into a “Reading Now” view and an “Up Next” queue without ever duplicating an entry.

If you have already duplicated the free Notable Dashboard, you can repurpose an existing section rather than starting from scratch. The Content Calendar and Tasks & Projects databases both use the Status and Priority field structure a reading queue needs, so cloning one of those and renaming the fields is the fastest path to a working list.

The One Database Behind Everything

Create a new database (or copy the Tasks & Projects one) called Reading List and give it these properties:

• Name — the book title. This is your database’s title property, so it is always present.
• Author — a plain text field so you can find the right edition later.
• Source — a text or select field for where the recommendation came from: a friend’s name, a podcast, a newsletter, or an article. This is the field most trackers skip, and it is the one that makes a backlog trustworthy.
• Priority — reuse the dashboard’s existing Low / Medium / High options. This is how you turn a pile of titles into an ordered queue.
• Status — a select field with three options: To Read, Reading, Read. Keep it to three. The Notable Dashboard’s Tasks database uses Not started / In progress / Done, and you are simply renaming that same three-stage flow for books.
• Tags — genre or theme labels like fiction, business, or reference, borrowed directly from the dashboard’s Tags property.
• Notes — a short text field for a one-line takeaway once you finish. This stays deliberately lightweight.

That is the entire schema. Everything else in this system is a view built on top of these fields, which means you enter a book once and it flows automatically into whatever view its Status and Priority place it in.

Capturing Books the Moment You Hear About Them

The single most important habit is fast capture. When a recommendation lands, you should be able to add a row in under ten seconds: type the Name, jot the Author if you know it, and set the Source. Leave Priority and Status for later. The Notion mobile app makes this realistic because you can add a database item from your phone the instant a friend mentions a title, before the memory fades.

Filling in Source at capture time is what keeps the backlog honest. Three months later, a title like “that operations book” means nothing, but “recommended by Dana, ops podcast, March” tells you why it is on the list and whether it still matters. Sources you trust rise in priority; random impulse adds can be culled without guilt.

Setting Priority Without Overthinking It

Once a week, scan any books still sitting at a blank Priority and assign Low, Medium, or High. Resist the urge to invent a ten-point scoring system. Three levels are enough to answer the only question that matters: is this next, soon, or someday? High means you want it in your hands this month. Medium is the honest middle. Low is the “maybe never, but I do not want to forget it” pile, and there is nothing wrong with a long Low list.

Building the “Reading Now” and “Up Next” Views

This is where the single-database pattern pays off. From your one Reading List database, create these linked views, exactly as the Notable Dashboard surfaces its Quick Stats and section views from underlying data.

Reading Now

Filter Status equals Reading. This view should almost always contain one or two books. Pin it near the top of your dashboard so your current reads are the first thing you see. Keeping this view intentionally short is a feature; it discourages the scattered habit of half-reading six books at once.

Up Next

Filter Status equals To Read, then sort by Priority so High rises to the top. This is your queue. When you finish a book, you do not go hunting through a giant list. You open Up Next, take the top title, and switch its Status to Reading. The decision is already made.

The Full Backlog

Keep one unfiltered view, grouped by Priority or by Tags, as your library of everything. Group by Source occasionally to see which recommenders actually deliver books you love, and prune the ones that do not.

Closing the Loop With Lightweight Notes

When you finish a book, do two things and only two things. Change Status to Read, and write a single line in Notes: the one idea worth remembering, or simply whether you would recommend it. This is the deliberate boundary of a reading-list system. Deep highlight capture, chapter summaries, and detailed ratings belong in a dedicated reading tracker, and if that is what you want, build it in a separate database. Here, the goal is a clean, trusted queue and just enough closing memory to guide future picks.

Run this for a month and the payoff is quiet but real: you stop losing recommendations, you always know your next book, and your backlog becomes a curated shortlist instead of an anxious pile. The Notable Dashboard’s one-database-many-views structure does the heavy lifting, so the only discipline required from you is a fast capture and a weekly Priority pass.

Sources & further reading

• Notion Help Center: Intro to databases
• Notion Help Center: Views, filters, and sorts