On Reading More (and Why I Built a Tracker for It)

I read a lot as a kid and then, somewhere in my twenties, I mostly stopped. Not on purpose — the books just lost the competition for attention against an endless feed that asked nothing of me. I wanted that habit back, so I did the thing engineers do when they want a habit: I built a tool.

The Strava insight

Running apps figured out something profound: the activity itself didn’t change, but seeing the streak changed everything. A green square is a surprisingly strong motivator. I wanted that for reading — not a social network, not gamified slop, just a quiet ledger of pages turned and a streak I didn’t want to break.

That became ReadLog. Track books, log sessions, save highlights, keep the streak alive. Nothing more.

What actually moved the needle

The app helped, but honestly the bigger unlock was mechanical: I started leaving a physical book on my pillow every morning. The phone charges across the room. Friction in, friction out. The streak made me want to read; the pillow made it easy to.

Three months in, I’m averaging a book every nine days. Not heroic. But the habit is back, and that’s the whole point.