This sounds jokey but it's a serious question: what would you lose by not doing any of that?
I read a lot, and used to use goodreads for this, and now I don't use anything for this. I have a messy little notebook where I write down books I want to read so I don't forget they exist.
I inconsistently cross them off as I read them, and all together it's enough to usually remember what I read and often remember how I felt about it. It turns out my reading life isn't improved by any more than this.
I like keeping a journal as I read and find that valuable. But goodreads isn't well suited for that and I never look back through it anyway. Writing it is useful, indexing it isn't.
IDK my reading isn't your reading but you might be surprised how little of the goodreads feature set is actually valuable if you stop using it.
- I read a lot and so friends not-infrequently come do me for recommendations. Having rated a big chunk of the things I've read, I can sort by rating and scroll for things they'd like. Often I go "holy shit I forgot all about that one, but it's perfect for Bob."
- I'm always looking for the next thing to read, and it's really nice to be able to quickly scroll through my (long) 'want to read' list for something that piques my interest for the mood I'm in.
1. Keeping track of where I am in a series. Goodreads has a handy feature where you can see the list of books in a given series. I maintain a reading list with (way too many) different series and it has my next book in each one.
2. Remembering which books I've read. (Kind of related to #1.) More than once I've gotten more than a few pages into a book and realized, "hey I'm pretty sure I read this before".
Either of these would work in a notebook or spreadsheet but that would require changing my workflow (and "importing" a long list of books).
Not much, all things considered. But I have a pretty bad memory, and it can be hard to remember which books by an author I've read, and which ones I haven't.
I guess I could just store all this in a spreadsheet, or email myself reviews, but this is convenient enough that I don't do that.
I read a lot, and used to use goodreads for this, and now I don't use anything for this. I have a messy little notebook where I write down books I want to read so I don't forget they exist.
I inconsistently cross them off as I read them, and all together it's enough to usually remember what I read and often remember how I felt about it. It turns out my reading life isn't improved by any more than this.
I like keeping a journal as I read and find that valuable. But goodreads isn't well suited for that and I never look back through it anyway. Writing it is useful, indexing it isn't.
IDK my reading isn't your reading but you might be surprised how little of the goodreads feature set is actually valuable if you stop using it.