These reading calculators will help you determine everything from how much you have read to your reading speed to track and improve your reading life quickly and easily.
One of my daily reading habits is calculating my reading (and re-calculating it), so I thought it would be both interesting and helpful to share some of my favorite reading calculators with you so you can also experience their benefits.
Reading calculators are extremely useful to me in reaching my reading goals, and they are also fun to look at, especially over the course of time or when you reach a milestone, like the end of a year.
Below are the top reading calculators I personally use and recommend.
Reading Calculators
Our Brains
I swear I’m not being snarky with this one. Literally every day when I start reading, the first thing I do is take another look at my book (or audiobook) and try to mentally make updated time and speed calculations and re-calculations with my brain.
In practice, this means I look daily at where I’m at now in a book, how much time I have to devote to reading, where I want to be in the book at the end of this reading session, and even how many more days I think it will take me to finish a book, so I can also plan ahead.
I do this in a similar, yet different, way with harder classics as well. With those, I aim to read 10 pages per day, so I go into them with a very real calculation of when I will finish them. Speed doesn’t matter as much to me in this regard, as I’ve already committed to 10 pages a day regardless of time. And, if I do miss a day, I just add them to the next day in order to stay on track. (But, you can also just re-calculate your end date.)
Sometimes, I actually think your brain is the best way to calculate reading, as we can account for factors personally that can’t be reduced to numbers like distractions, a bad day, or an extra slow burn.
Reading Time Calculator
If you want to take things one step beyond what your brain can reasonably calculate, you can also use this reading time calculator.
There are a variety of ways you can make calculations here. For example, you can input a timeframe, like an hour, and see how many pages you can read in that time — or visa versa. You can also input the page count of a book and see how long it will take you to read.
It’s a more “official” way than estimating with your brain!
Reading Speed Calculator
And, this reading speed calculator helps you project even further and determine how many books you can read in a given time period. I find this to be especially helpful at “beginnings”… of the year, of the month, etc.
GoodReads
GoodReads is another one of my favorite reading calculators. It can be used to track your reading in a variety of ways, but in terms of numerical calculations, I love using it to track the number of books I read each year, and to see my “Year in Books.”
“Year in Books” is this really cool auto-generated, easy-to-read and share webpage that GoodReads sends you at the end of every year. It tells you everything from how many books you read that year (based on the data you have entered into GoodReads) to how many pages you read, your shortest and longest book, your average book rating, and so forth. It’s kind of like a digital bookish yearbook or scrapbook. And, let me tell you, it is so satisfying!
Kindle Time Calculator
If you read on an Amazon Kindle, that will also help you track your reading. You can go into your settings and play with the “Reading Progress” setting to have it tell you at the bottom corner of the screen as you are reading things like how much time you have left to read in the chapter or the book.
The speed is personalized, but don’t worry too much about staying on track too much, as you can re-set it to re-calculate your average reading speed. If I get distracted, I will re-calculate.
I think this particular kind of reading calculator has the potential to be helpful or not depending on the person, but for me, it’s just another type of data that tends to keep me both on track and motivated.
Audiobook Speed Calculator
I am an absolute sucker for audiobook speed calculators, and I get so annoyed when they don’t properly update to show me how much time is left in a book when I change the speed.
What I mean is that these days, most audiobook providers will tell you right on the player how much time is left in the book. And, if you change the reading speed, it will update accordingly. So, if an audiobook is 10 hours long at 1.0 speed, but I update the speed to 2.0, the time should be cut to 5 hours.
I find this to be so helpful in goal setting for each and every audiobook I read.
Reading Journal
Next, my printable PDF Reading Journal can help you calculate your reading in a variety of ways. It includes things like daily reading habit trackers and a book tally, which I especially love to see how many books I read each month in a year.
Conclusion
These reading calculators to quickly and easily track your reading and achieve your reading goals.
To recap and help you decide how to best calculate your own reading, my top 2 personal favorite reading calculators are:
- Digital: GoodReads
- Printable: Reading Journal
Audiobook Speed Calculator
I am an absolute sucker for audiobook speed calculators, and I get so annoyed when they don’t properly update to show me how much time is left in a book when I change the speed