A reading schedule built from a page count. Tell it how many pages you have, how fast you read, how many days you have left and how many minutes a day you will actually sit down, and it works out the daily page target, a day by day list, and the date you finish.
It is for the semester reading list that quietly turned into 300 pages, the two week gap before a seminar, and anyone who has ever opened a novel on the 1st of the month and expected to be done by the 31st. The maths is simple enough to do by hand, which is the point: it stops you guessing.
The honest detail: the plan counts calendar days from tomorrow onwards, weekends included, and assumes every day is the same. If you know you will not read on Sundays, add those days back in yourself or read a Sunday’s worth on Saturday.
Create a reading schedule from your total page count. Enter pages, reading speed, and available days to get daily targets and a completion date.
How the schedule is built
Speed is entered in pages per hour, not words per minute, because books are measured in pages and nobody counts the words in chapter 11. The daily target is speed divided by 60, multiplied by your minutes: 30 pages an hour for 60 minutes is 30 pages a day, and 20 pages an hour for 45 minutes is 15 pages a day.
Then it divides the total pages by that daily target and rounds up, which gives days needed. 300 pages at 30 pages a day is exactly 10 days. 500 pages at 15 pages a day is 33.33, so 34 days. The completion date is simply today plus that number of days, printed as a full weekday and date so it cannot be misread.
It also compares days needed against the days you said you have. If you need more than you have, it warns you and tells you to raise the daily time or the speed, because those are the only two levers the maths has.
The daily targets then run from tomorrow, one row per day, each with its date, its page range and how many pages that is: “Wed, Sep 30: Pages 1-30 (30 pages)”. Fourteen days of rows are shown, and anything beyond that gets a single line saying how many days are left over.
A worked example with real numbers
The defaults are a good place to start: 300 pages, 30 pages per hour, 14 days available, 60 minutes a day. Daily target comes out at 30 pages, days needed at 10, and the completion date lands ten days from today. Since 10 fits inside 14, no warning appears.
The list reads 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120, 121-150, 151-180, 181-210, 211-240, 241-270, and 271-300 on the last day. Ten rows, ten even blocks, all the same size because the inputs divide cleanly.
Now a nastier one. 500 pages, 20 pages per hour, 45 minutes a day, 7 days until the seminar. Daily target is 15 pages, so you need 34 days and have 7, and the warning says exactly that: you need 34 days but only have 7, increase daily reading time or speed. At that point the honest options are to cut the reading list, find more time, or accept reading selectively rather than pretending the schedule will hold.
Half hours work the same way: 60 pages per hour for 30 minutes gives 30 pages a day again. Twice the speed, half the time, same target.
What this plan assumes
Pages are not a constant. A dense textbook page with figures and footnotes takes two or three times the paperback beside it, so a pages-per-hour figure taken from a novel will have you behind by chapter 3. Time yourself for ten minutes on the actual book, count the pages, multiply by six, and use that.
The plan is also flat. It gives every day the same page range, with no rest days, no catch-up day and no weighting for the chapters you have been putting off. If the maths says you finish exactly on the deadline, treat that as a warning rather than a plan.
One quirk worth knowing: blanks and zeros are replaced by the defaults rather than rejected. Clear the minutes box and you get 60 back, not an error. It keeps the tool usable, and it also means a typo you did not notice becomes a silent assumption.
Other tools
- Room cleaning schedule for the other thing on the list this week
- Semester calendar to see the reading week and the deadlines together
- Shift schedule maker for fitting the reading around actual work hours
Frequently asked questions
Does it skip weekends?
No. It counts calendar days from tomorrow through to the completion date, and the page ranges carry straight through Saturday and Sunday. If your week really only has five reading days, add a weekend’s worth of pages to the total before you start.
How do I find my pages per hour?
Read for a fixed ten minutes on the book you actually have to finish, count how many pages you got through, and multiply by six. Do it twice on different days if you can, because the first session of the term is always slower than the fourth.
Why does it say I need more days than I have?
Because the daily target does not cover the total in the time available. Either the minutes per day go up, the speed goes up, or the page count comes down. There is no fourth option in the arithmetic, and a plan that ignores the warning is not a plan.
What happens if I change the days available field?
It only controls the warning. The schedule and the completion date come from pages, speed and minutes alone, so shortening the days you have does not move the dates. It only tells you whether the dates were ever realistic.