In the last year I have read a lot more than before. I used to read articles, and fiction books, but lately I started to read general knowledge books.
But you know, reading is nice, but we people tend to forget important things over the time. And usually when reading I’m not ready to write just yet.
So first of all, I switched from plain physical books to a Kindle (again).
I used to use a Kindle years ago, but I dropped it because I read a lot when it is dark. But I got a Kindle with backlight, that works awesomely well.
You cannot to get a quick view from a plain book, but you can take notes and highlight stuff on the Kindle.
One of the books I read in the last year was: Building a Second Brain. And it includes a lot of useful things on how to recall things when you need it. In the end it’s like the Memento movie. Even if not daily, we tend to forget things.
What I do with books now is the following:
- I read the book in the kindle, then I highlight stuff and take small notes on highlights.
- Once I have finished the book, I import the highlights in clippings.io
- I create a new document in my second brain notebook. In my case I use two: UpNote and Notion for different things. But I can search for stuff quickly on my phone and on my computer.
- I create sections of the book in that document and copy each clipping one by one in each section. I do this manually so I can read it again. I remove the highlights one by one once transferred.
- Once done, I underline/bold part of the highlights. It is easier now that I have the whole picture of the book.
- Then I make an executive summary of the book at the document
This allow me to go to the book and recall it as required, and also refresh stuff from time to time.
I have also a special page where I keep all the great findings I found that I want to include or exclude in my life and habits.
I have also the books in HTML format so I can search and quickly look at it.
Why not just download summaries for books or ask summaries from an AI? Well, in the end the objective is to learn. It takes time and repetition to interioritize stuff. So I believe even nowadays it is worth.