Reading Challenge Tracker Spreadsheet, Excel and Google Sheets, Yearly Book Goal Pace

A yearly reading challenge comes down to one question, asked over and over:

Am I ahead or behind?

A printable tracker shows you twelve ticked boxes out of fifty and leaves the arithmetic to you. This one does the arithmetic. It works out how many books you would have finished by today if you read steadily all year, compares it to what you have actually finished, and tells you in plain words — “4 books AHEAD”, “2 books BEHIND”, “right on pace”.

It updates itself every day. There is nothing to tick.

WHAT YOU TYPE

• Your goal, and the year.
• One row per book: title, author, genre, when you started, when you finished, pages, a rating out of five, and the format.

That is the whole system.

WHAT IS INSIDE

• Books — 300 rows with dropdowns for rating and format (Paperback, Hardcover, Ebook, Audiobook, Library).
• By Month — books finished, pages read and average rating for every month, with a year total. Good for noticing you read nothing in April, three years running.
• Read Me First — your pace, percent of goal, books still to go, pages read, average book length and average rating.

A BOOK COUNTS WHEN YOU FINISH IT Books you have started but not finished are your current pile — they do not count toward the goal yet. That is deliberate. A challenge you can pad by starting twelve books at once is not measuring anything.

DID NOT FINISH? That is fine. Leave the Finished date empty and note it. Putting down a book you are not enjoying is a skill, not a failure, and it should not dent your count.

STARTING MID-YEAR IS FINE Add the books you have already finished with their real dates and the pace box catches up immediately.

WORKS IN BOTH Excel and Google Sheets. Drag it into Google Drive and every formula, dropdown and colour carries over. A one-page PDF quickstart is included.

WHY THE GREY CELLS ARE LOCKED Every calculated cell is protected, because the fastest way to break a tracker is to overwrite a formula and not notice. Type in the yellow cells. No password is set — you can unlock any sheet if you want to.

INSTANT DOWNLOAD Delivered the moment you buy. Nothing ships.

Made by a two-person shop. Questions get a real answer at [email protected].

AI DISCLOSURE The spreadsheet’s structure, formulas and wording were designed and built with the help of AI tools, then tested and checked by a person before listing. The cover and preview images are generated graphics, not photographs.