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Lesson 39

Building Your Reading List Database

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Hello! Welcome back to our project on building a Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system.

In our last lesson, you built the foundation of your "second brain": the 'Notes' database. This is the central repository where your ideas, summaries, and insights will live.

Now, we'll build the second critical component. A knowledge system isn't just about what you create; it's also about what you consume. In this lesson, we will create a dedicated 'Reading List' database designed specifically to track the books, articles, podcasts, and other resources that fuel your learning and creativity. For a content creator, this is your wellspring of inspiration and research.

1. The Anatomy of a 'Reading List' Database

Before we build, let's define what makes a reading list truly functional. It needs to go beyond a simple list of titles. A great reading list helps you:

  • Categorize different types of media (books vs. articles vs. videos).
  • Track your progress (what you plan to read, what you're currently reading, and what you've finished).
  • Capture key details like the author and a link to the source.
  • Rate content to remember what was most impactful.

The goal is to create a clean, organized, and visually appealing database like the one shown below. Notice the different properties used to capture various pieces of information for each entry.

Notion Quick Reading List Database Example
This example of a 'Reading List' shows properties for tracking the content's name, type, status, score, author, and a link.

2. Building Your 'Reading List'

We will now create the database and configure its properties. The best place for this new master database is inside the "Databases" page you created in the last lesson, right alongside your "Notes" database. This keeps your workspace tidy.

The following video provides an excellent walkthrough of building a reading list from scratch. We will use it as a guide to create our own. While the video uses an inline table, you will create a full-page database for better organization.

How To Build A Clean Notion Reading List (Template)

The video 'How To Build A Clean Notion Reading List' by Red Gregory is a fantastic, in-depth guide. We will use it to build our own database. Follow along as the video demonstrates creating the database and adding several key properties.

Watch the following sections: Database & Property Setup (01:18 - 03:49): Pay attention to the creation of the database and the addition of properties like author (Multi-select), start date, end date, rating (Select), and cover (Files & Media). Adding Rating Options (12:46 - 13:20): This short clip shows how to add star emoji options to the 'Rating' property, a great touch for visual design that makes a template more appealing.

Based on the video and best practices, here are the essential properties to add to your 'Reading List' database:

  • Type (Select): To categorize the media. Create options like Book, Article, Video, and Podcast. Using a Select property ensures each entry has only one type.
  • Status (Select): To track your progress. Create options like To Read, Reading, and Finished.
  • Author (Multi-select): To credit the creator(s). Using Multi-select is ideal for resources with multiple authors.
  • URL (URL): A dedicated property for the direct link to an article, video, or online store page.
  • Rating (Select): For your personal review. As shown in the video, you can use emojis (e.g., ⭐, ⭐⭐) for a quick, visual rating system. This is a small design detail that adds a lot of value to a template.
  • Cover (Files & Media): To add a book cover or a video thumbnail. This property is key to creating visually engaging gallery views, which is highly desirable for sellable templates.
Test your understanding!

You want to add a property to track the publication year of a book. Which property type (Text, Number, or Date) would be most suitable and why?

Show answer

The Number property is the most suitable choice. While you could use Text, using Number ensures data consistency (only numbers can be entered) and allows you to sort your database chronologically by publication year. The Date property would be too specific, as it requires a full month, day, and year.

3. Pro Tip: Capturing Content with the Web Clipper

As a content creator, you likely come across dozens of interesting articles every week. Manually copying and pasting each one into Notion is tedious. The Notion Web Clipper is a browser extension that saves any webpage to a Notion database with one click.

This official video from Notion provides a quick demonstration.

Build a reading list in Notion

A huge part of a reading list is capturing articles from the web. The Notion Web Clipper is the perfect tool for this. The official Notion channel has a quick demonstration.

Watch from 03:34 to 04:37 to see how the web clipper saves a webpage directly into your Notion database, including its content and URL.

Setting up the web clipper is a powerful way to streamline your content capture workflow.

✍️ Exercise: Build Your 'Reading List' Database

It's time to build. Follow these steps to create the second pillar of your PKM system.

  • 1. Create the Database:

    • Navigate to the "Databases" page within your "My PKM System."
    • Create a new Full-page database and name it "Reading List".
    • Give it a suitable icon, like a stack of books 📚.

  • 2. Configure Properties:

    • Delete the default 'Tags' property.
    • Add the following properties, creating the options as you go:
      • Type (Select): Add options Book, Article, Video, Podcast.
      • Status (Select): Add options To Read, Reading, Finished.
      • Author (Multi-select).
      • URL (URL).
      • Rating (Select): Add options using star emojis: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, etc.
      • Cover (Files & Media).

  • 3. Add Sample Entries:

    • Create at least three new entries to populate your list:
      • A book you want to read. Set its Status to To Read. Find its cover online, copy the image, and paste it into the Cover property cell.
      • An article you recently read. Set its Status to Finished, give it a Rating, and paste its link into the URL property.
      • A podcast or video you found interesting.

When you're done, you'll have a functional and well-structured database ready to track all your learning resources.

Conclusion

Excellent work! You've now built a dedicated 'Reading List' database, the second major component of your PKM system. By setting up specific properties for type, status, author, and more, you've created a powerful tool for managing the flow of information you consume. This database not only serves your personal organization but also stands as a valuable, independent system you could one day polish into a sellable template.

Key Takeaways:

  • A 'Reading List' database is for managing your "inputs"—the content you read, watch, and listen to.
  • Using specific property types like Select, Multi-select, URL, and Files & Media allows for robust tracking and organization.
  • Visual properties like Cover and emoji-based Rating significantly enhance the design and user experience of a Notion template.

Preview of the Next Lesson:
Currently, your 'Notes' and 'Reading List' are two separate, powerful databases. But the real magic of a "second brain" lies in connection. In the next lesson, you will learn how to use one of Notion's most important features—the Relation property—to link these two databases together. This will allow you to connect your specific notes and ideas directly to the book, article, or video that inspired them, creating a truly integrated knowledge system.