Reading Plan and Page Pace Planner

---
name: reading-plan-and-page-pace-planner
description: Plans your reading day by day so you finish every book before its book club, course or exam date - from page or word counts (or audiobook length), your reading speed, the minutes you have each weekday, trips and busy days. Spreads pages evenly, keeps buffer days before each deadline and weekly catch-up days, stops at chapter ends, warns when a deadline is out of reach and re-plans from where you are. Includes a stdlib Python planner.
---

# Reading Plan and Page Pace Planner

You help readers stop cramming 200 pages the night before book club. People know roughly how much time they have (half an hour on weekdays, more at the weekend) but not what that means in pages for a 245-page novel due in two weeks, a dense work book and an 880-page classic in the same month. You turn books, reading speed and free minutes into a concrete daily plan ("Tue: p. 1-27"), keep slack for real life, and say early and plainly when a deadline cannot be met and what would fix it.

## Files in this skill

- `scripts/reading_plan.py` - reads a plan JSON (books with pages, words or audiobook minutes, start page, difficulty, deadline, chapter starts; reading speed in words per minute or pages per hour; minutes per weekday; trips and exceptions; catch-up weekdays; buffer days); schedules earliest deadline first, spreads the load evenly (or as soon as possible), snaps daily stops to chapter ends, and prints a book summary, findings RP01-RP06, a day-by-day table with page ranges, weekly checkpoints and catch-up advice; `--from` + `--at "Title=page"` re-plans mid-way (Python 3.8+ standard library only)
- `references/reading-speed-and-estimates.md` - measuring your speed, words per page by book type, difficulty factors, audiobooks
- `references/pacing-and-catch-up.md` - buffers, catch-up days, what to do when you fall behind or a deadline is impossible
- `templates/reading-plan.md` - the plan to hand back (calendar-friendly)
- `examples/book-club.json` - November-December: a novel for a Thursday book club, a work book already started at p. 23, Middlemarch for a classics club, an audiobook with no deadline, Sunday catch-up days, a weekend trip and two unusual days
- `examples/book-club-plan.md` - the real planner output on that file

## Workflow

### 1. Collect the inputs
Ask for: each book with its page count (or word count; the edition matters), where they are now, the deadline and what it is (meeting, exam), whether it is easy or dense; their reading speed (or time a 10-minute test with `references/reading-speed-and-estimates.md`); realistic minutes per weekday, not ideal ones; known trips, late shifts and free days; which weekday should stay free as a catch-up day; and how many days before each meeting they want to be done (buffer, default 1-2).

### 2. Run the planner
```
python3 scripts/reading_plan.py examples/book-club.json
python3 scripts/reading_plan.py examples/book-club.json --mode asap
python3 scripts/reading_plan.py examples/book-club.json --from 2026-11-20 --at "Thinking in Systems=110"
python3 scripts/reading_plan.py plan.json --json
python3 scripts/reading_plan.py --self-test
```
Exit 0 = every deadline met, 1 = at least one book cannot be finished in time, 2 = bad input. Without a shell: minutes needed = pages x words per page / words per minute x difficulty; compare with the minutes available up to each finish-by date (deadline minus buffer, catch-up days excluded), earliest deadline first.

### 3. Read the result
- RP01 (high): a book does not fit before its deadline. The message gives the shortfall in pages and the extra minutes per reading day that would close it. When the plan is infeasible the planner reads at full pace before it, so earlier books finish early to free time.
- RP02 / RP04 (medium): the plan only works by eating the buffer, or uses over 90% of your time in its busiest stretch - one bad week breaks it.
- RP03 (low): days longer than the max session - split them. RP05/RP06 (info): finished books, close deadlines, audiobooks.
- Check the day table for heavy weekend days and the weekly checkpoints for "where should I be by Sunday".

### 4. Fix an impossible plan
Offer options in this order: start the long book now in parallel (move its deadline logic earlier), add 10-20 minutes on some days, use the catch-up days, switch part of it to the audiobook for commutes, skim or skip clearly marked sections, or accept arriving at the meeting part-way and say so. Re-run after each change. See `references/pacing-and-catch-up.md`.

### 5. Deliver
Fill `templates/reading-plan.md`: per-book summary, the week-by-week plan (dates and page ranges, ready for a calendar or a bookmark note), the catch-up rule, and the re-plan command. Offer a quick re-plan whenever they report their current page.

## Example result
On `examples/book-club.json` (240 wpm, 20-60 min a day, Sundays free for catch-up, 2 buffer days) *The Remains of the Day* is done on 12 Nov for the 19 Nov book club, stopping at chapter ends, and *Thinking in Systems* (dense, factor 1.3, from p. 23) on 27 Nov for the 1 Dec group. *Middlemarch* (316,000 words, about 22 hours) cannot be finished by the 17 Dec classics club: about 452 pages short, projected finish 11 Jan (RP01, high). Fix: about +17 minutes on each of the 42 reading days, or start it alongside the other two now. The 120-minute quiet Saturday is flagged as two sessions (RP03), and the Piranesi audiobook (6 h 40 at 1.25x) follows after Middlemarch.

## Rules

- Plan with the time people really have, and keep at least one buffer day before every meeting.
- Never quietly overfill days: if it does not fit, say which deadline fails, by how many pages, and what would fix it.
- Use the edition's page count; when only word counts are known, say that pages are estimates.
- Leave catch-up days empty in the plan - they are for falling behind, not for more reading.
- Reading should stay enjoyable: suggest skipping or switching formats before suggesting 2-hour sessions every day.
- Re-plan from the current page whenever the reader is behind or ahead; do not make them "catch up" to an old schedule.
FILE:references/reading-speed-and-estimates.md
# Reading speed and estimates

## Measure your speed (10 minutes)
1. Pick the actual book (or one like it), start at a chapter start, set a 10-minute timer and read normally.
2. Count the words on three full lines, divide by 3 = words per line; count the lines on a full page = lines per page.
3. words per page = words per line x lines per page; words per minute = pages read x words per page / 10.
Or simply time a few pages and use `"pages_per_hour"` instead of words per minute.

## Typical values
| Reader / material | Words per minute |
|---|---|
| Careful reading, dense non-fiction, second language | 150-200 |
| Average adult, fiction | 200-260 |
| Fast leisure reader | 300-400 |
Skimming is not reading: do not plan with speeds above 450.

| Book type | Words per page |
|---|---|
| Mass-market paperback | 300-350 |
| Trade paperback fiction | 250-300 |
| Hardcover non-fiction with notes | 350-450 |
| Large print, children's chapter books | 150-200 |
| E-book | use the word count (store page or tools that show it) and the default 275 words per page |

## Difficulty factor
`"difficulty"` multiplies reading time: 1.0 easy fiction, 1.2-1.4 dense non-fiction, classics with long sentences, technical books with diagrams, 1.5+ textbooks you take notes on, poetry, second-language reading.

## Page count vs word count
- Use the page count of the edition the reader holds; editions of the same book can differ by 30%.
- With both `"pages"` and `"words"`, the planner derives the words per page of that edition (Middlemarch 316,000 / 880 = 359).
- With only words, pages are estimates (words / words per page); say so in the plan.

## Audiobooks
- `"audio_minutes"` is the runtime, `"speed"` the playback speed: time needed = runtime / speed (400 min at 1.25x = 320 min).
- Audio fits commutes, chores and walks: say whether those minutes are extra or already counted in the daily minutes.
- Positions are shown as h:mm of the audio.
FILE:references/pacing-and-catch-up.md
# Pacing and catch-up

## How the planner schedules
- Earliest deadline first: the book with the nearest finish-by date (deadline minus buffer days) is read first; books without a deadline come last.
- Even mode (default): for each stretch up to the tightest deadline it uses the smallest equal share of your daily minutes that still finishes in time, so 30-minute days might become 20-minute days when there is room. After that deadline the next stretch is computed again.
- ASAP mode: uses all the minutes every day; books finish as early as possible.
- If a deadline cannot be met even at full pace, every day before it is planned at full pace and the book is flagged RP01.
- Daily stops move to a chapter end when one is within `chapter_snap_pages` (default 8) and a quarter of the day's pages.

## Buffers and catch-up days
- Buffer days (`buffer_days`, default 1) sit between the planned finish and the meeting: time to reread notes or absorb a bad week.
- Catch-up weekdays (`catch_up_days`, e.g. Sunday) get no planned reading. Use them only when behind; if you are on track they are free time.
- Exceptions (trips, late shifts, a quiet Saturday) override the weekday minutes for those dates.

## When you fall behind
1. Missed one day: read that day's pages on the next catch-up day, or add a third of them to each of the next three days.
2. Behind by more than two days: re-plan from today with `--from <today> --at "<Title>=<current page>"` instead of chasing the old plan.
3. Still not in time (RP01): pick one - start the long book in parallel now, add 10-20 minutes on a few days, use the audiobook for commutes, skim marked sections (prefaces, appendices, notes), or decide to arrive part-way and tell the group.

## Signs the plan is too tight
- RP04: over 90% of your time used in a stretch; any illness or late week breaks it.
- RP02: the book only fits by using the buffer days.
- Many days marked "2 sessions" (RP03): consider spreading reading across morning and evening on purpose.

## Book club tips
- Note the page or chapter the group will discuss if it is not the whole book, and use that as the book's `pages`.
- For long classics, ask the club whether the meeting covers the first half; plan two deadlines.
- Keep a sticky note in the book with the weekly checkpoints from the plan.
FILE:templates/reading-plan.md
# Reading plan: <name> (<start> to <last deadline>)

**Pace:** <wpm> words/min, about <pages> pages in a 30-minute session
**Time:** <minutes per weekday>; catch-up day(s): <day>; buffer: <n> day(s) before each meeting
**Verdict:** <every deadline is met | BOOK cannot be finished by DATE - see options>

## Books
| Book | Pages left | Time needed | Meeting / deadline | Finish by | Planned finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| <title> | <pp> | <h:mm> | <date - event> | <date> | <date> |

## Week by week
### Week of <Mon date>
- Mon: <Book p. a-b>
- Tue: <...>
- Sun: catch-up / free
**Checkpoint Sunday night:** <Book p. X>

## If a deadline does not fit
- Shortfall: <pages> pages of <book> by <date>
- Options: <+N min on reading days | start now in parallel | audiobook for commutes | skim chapters x-y | arrive part-way>
- Chosen: <...>

## Falling behind
- Missed a day? Use <catch-up day> or add <n> pages to the next three days.
- More than two days behind: re-plan from today (`--from <date> --at "<title>=<page>"`).
FILE:examples/book-club.json
{
  "name": "Reading plan: Nov-Dec 2026 (two book clubs and a work book)",
  "start": "2026-11-03",
  "reader": {"words_per_minute": 240, "words_per_page": 280},
  "minutes": {"mon": 30, "tue": 30, "wed": 20, "thu": 30, "fri": 25, "sat": 60, "sun": 45},
  "catch_up_days": ["sun"],
  "buffer_days": 2,
  "max_session_minutes": 60,
  "chapter_snap_pages": 8,
  "exceptions": [
    {"dates": "2026-1

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