Has anyone figured out a system of active highlighting or note taking while reading books? I find myself on either end of the spectrum - either I'm only reading or I'm taking way too many notes that aren't even helpful. I'm trying to get better at identifying insights that I think are good and noting down q's I have
I read on the kindle app on ipad and highlight / take notes as needed If I really want to go deeper on something, I share the highlight to Apple Notes and write more notes there
I dog ear pages when there is a quote that stands out to me If the book is really good, I go through it again and use Readwise to OCR quotes on marked pages
Actually just posted about this too! This claims to be a useful technique, but I’ve just started https://warpcast.com/james-forumdaos/0xe07904
tl;dr: decouple reading from note taking not exactly a system, just a useful rule-of-thumb i keep coming back to: sit down to read with no pen/pencil/highlighter. if something jumps out and i have the impulse to take a note, wait until *after* i’m finished reading *then* go back and takes notes/highlight
You could ask Sebastian or check out his material https://x.com/dsebastien?s=21&t=BtRHAq09XJoD9vOnNrTAQA
I actively use Readwise (https://readwise.io) to take pictures and create highlights or sync via Kindle/Books app
I once read about a US president who used to tear off pages of books as soon as he'd read them Probably apocryphal 😂 but you never know what works
For nonfic, I build an index that maps the book as I read, v briefly summarising sections and noting questions. Each book has a thesis, so the index helps me to see and revisit the arguments, and then generate my own thoughts/insights. For fiction, I highlight quotes that strike me and note any thoughts in response.
I read with a pencil in hand and underline things that interest me, oft annotating in the margin, and dogearing the key pages I’ll then flick through after reading and type up notes
use a pencil to annotate on the margins. use colored stickies to bookmark, so you remember vaguely whether it is an idea or question.
I take photos of pages of physical books, or screenshots of ebooks. Audiobooks I write apple notes with the chapter noted. All of that is just for quotes. For notes, I just brain dump after a big chapter or section.
I mark pages on e-reader And come back when I'm on my computer I don't really take notes while reading unless something strikes
I try to summarize the important notes in a google docs. Have two sections in the notes: 1. Learnings - things I learned that i want to remember 2. Action Items - things I can use from the book in my life
1: use pen and underline horizontally for important things, and add vertical lines at the start and end of *really* important things. so you end up with 2 tiers of highlights. underline only what *really* resonates and draw a star on the outer side of the page for easy retrieval.
I highlight as I go, and occasionally add questions as notes. I then revisit my highlights after I finish and write up a summary. Examples: https://brandon.uno/books/
I used to highlight and take a lot of notes, but I’ve come to find that if it was anything really important, I’d usually a) remember it, or b) fit the lessons/ideas within a notebook page or two (or Apple notes). As for how to determine what to write down, it’s stuff you want to remember or think about more.
Screenshot some things and send them to yoink, but this is mostly for visuals I like