A Decade of 600+ Books: The Productivity Tool Tactics of an Avid Reader

A Reading Journey: 600 Books in 10 Years

ElijahLee, a member of the minority group [少数派], has maintained a reading habit since 2017, completing his 10-year reading journey at the end of 2026. Over this period, he has cumulatively read over 600 books, utilizing numerous applications and services for reading support, list management, and note organization. The author published a similar article in 2019, but explains that due to significant changes in his tools and environment, he is comprehensively organizing and updating the topic in this article.

Although the content introduced in this article is specialized for reading, it includes creative thinking and methodologies that the author says are applicable in many other situations. He states that he believes this will provide new insights or useful information for readers.

Pre-Reading: Book Management Tools

Before starting a book, the author primarily uses three tools. The first is Douban Books (豆瓣読书). This is an online book database for the Chinese-speaking world, known for its comprehensive book information and rapid updates. Compared to the similar service Goodreads, Douban Books is considered to have superior support for Chinese-language books and better aligns with the habits of Chinese users. The author uses Douban Books to search for books, record ratings, and track popular titles. Douban’s annual summary serves as a great companion for reviewing a year’s reading, and its annual reading rankings function as an authoritative source of information.

The second is the GTD app Things, which is used to record book lists and progress. The author creates a “Books to Read” project in Things, managing the book list under various headings. Examples include headings like “Currently Reading,” “Want to Read,” and “Borrowed from Library.” By using Things’ tag feature, custom information can be added, such as the year the book was read, the source of the book (e.g., Douban’s annual rankings or recommendations from other books), and genre classification (fiction/non-fiction).

The third is an automated workflow combining Apple’s Shortcuts and AI. Previously, Douban offered a public API, but it is no longer available. The current method involves first having an AI assistant search for the book on Douban, return the information in a specified format, and then using Shortcuts to add it to Things. The chosen AI is Doubao (ByteDance’s AI assistant), which is noted for its strong search capabilities on the Chinese internet and minimal hallucinations. Shortcuts serves as the data bridge between the AI and Things.

Essential Tool for E-book Management

For reading on a Kindle, Calibre is an indispensable local e-book management tool. It functions as a private e-book library, enabling format conversion, e-book creation, import to Kindle, and adding covers to Kindle books, among other features. This allows for unified management of the reading environment.

Time Tracking and Progress During Reading

Tracking time and progress during the reading process is important. The author aims to read for one hour daily, utilizing fragmented time. For example, on weekdays, he combines 15 minutes from the previous night, 15 minutes on the commute, 15 minutes after arriving at work, and 15 minutes during lunch break to secure one continuous hour on weekends. The app that has supported this goal is the time-tracking app iHour. It supports iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, and includes features like task focus, time tracking, ambient sounds, and always-on display.

However, iHour presents challenges like sorting confusion, lack of search functionality, and only manual addition, especially when managing hundreds of books equivalent to sub-projects. Therefore, the author has been trying other reading tools this year.

Next-Generation Reading Tracker

Bookology is a reading tool he discovered this year, hoping it might replace iHour, though he hasn’t fully committed to abandoning the old tool yet. Bookology allows adding books via online search, automatically fetching basic metadata like cover, title, author, ISBN, and publisher. Its built-in reading timer enables recording the number of pages or percentage read, tracking reading progress. It also features a “reading round” function, convenient for re-reading books, and includes robust statistical functions.

Editorial Opinion

In the short term, the book management workflows combining AI and automation may gain attention as tools for enhancing individual productivity. In particular, the integration of Douban Books and Doubao adopted in the Chinese-speaking region could spur similar service integration enhancements in the Japanese market. Meanwhile, time-tracking apps like iHour and Bookology are expected to see expanded application beyond reading to general task management.

In the long term, as digital reading becomes established, integrated platforms for managing book information will evolve. AI automating book information acquisition and organization will reduce the management burden of reading lists, creating an environment where one can focus more on reading itself. Furthermore, data analysis of reading records may advance the visualization of individual reading patterns and areas of interest.

From the editorial perspective, the privacy and data management issues accompanying the spread of AI-integrated tools are raised. Reading data collected by services like Douban Books reflects individual intellectual curiosity and requires careful handling. Additionally, potential risks such as information overload from tool overuse, or it hampering concentration on reading itself, should perhaps be considered.

References

• “十年阅读历程，这是我的阅读工具推荐”, by ElijahLee — 少数派, 2026-08-20T07:25:47.000Z (ARR)
• Source URL: https://sspai.com/post/113567