How to Retain and Utilize What You Read: My Three-Step Process for Remembering Book Knowledge
Learn how to effectively capture, organize, and revisit the key insights from your reading.
As avid readers, we often invest a lot of time in absorbing new information, but without the right strategies, much of what we learn can be forgotten. Here’s how I ensure that the valuable insights I gather from reading stay with me and are easy to revisit.
1. The Power of Note-Taking: Enhancing Retention
One of the first steps I emphasize is the importance of note-taking while reading. Highlighting alone isn’t enough to cement the knowledge in our minds. I’ve found that adding brief notes alongside the highlights can make all the difference in recalling the context and significance of a particular point.
"Yes, it's great to highlight. I want to encourage you to highlight as much as possible anything that resonates with you that you want to remember, but a further step would be if you could add a little note to it," I mentioned in the video. For example, if I’m reading a business principle that stands out to me, I’ll add a note like, “This would really work for this project,” or “I like this because XYZ.” These notes help jog my memory when I revisit the information later on.
2. Utilizing Readwise and Notion: Consolidating and Reviewing Notes
The second step in my process involves leveraging technology to consolidate and review my reading notes. I use the Readwise app, which automatically gathers all the highlights and notes from my Kindle or scanned print books. Each day, Readwise sends me a daily digest email with randomly selected notes, keeping the information fresh and accessible.
"The way that this works with Readwise is you can connect your Kindle to it, and it just automatically takes all your notes from your Kindle—all your highlights from all the books that you've ever highlighted or taken notes on," I explained. I also integrate Readwise with Notion, which creates a neatly organized page for my notes. This way, my daily emails from Readwise are automatically added to my Notion page, complete with book covers and categorized information.
3. Creating a Book Journal on Notion: A Personalized Database
The final step in my process is creating a book journal on Notion. This app allows me to build a personalized database for each book I read, where I can upload the book cover and take detailed notes. I’ve designed templates for both fiction and non-fiction, which makes it easy to organize my thoughts, favorite quotes, character details, and chapter summaries.
"I have this little cozy book journal page... it's a database where I create one for each book, a spread, and I upload the book cover and just take notes there as well," I shared in the video. This personalized book journal has become an invaluable tool for revisiting what I’ve read and deepening my understanding of the material.
Bonus Tip: Printing Kindle Highlights and Notes
As a bonus, I also shared a quick and easy method for printing out Kindle highlights and notes. By visiting read.amazon.com/notebook, you can access all your Kindle notes and highlights in one place. From there, you can either print them out physically or save them as a PDF for easy reference.
"The easiest way that I know to do this is to go to this specific link... read.amazon.com/notebook, and it will bring up all of your highlights and notes... you simply click on that and then hit print. Now you can either print this on your printer and have the physical copy of all the notes, or you can print as a PDF and then save that document on your computer," I explained.