Skip to main content
Focustivity

From Forgotten Highlights to Actionable Insights: My Readwise Journey


I enjoy reading books. But, one thing that bothers me is the note-taking process. On one hand, I want to be able to quickly reference what I have read in the past. Maybe, even make some connections between ideas that are pulled from various sources. On the other hand, I would rather not be bothered with the extra work.

I don’t mind making highlights, and quick notes as I read. On a Kindle, I highlight passages that capture my interest. In physical books, I underline text and jot down brief notes on the pages.

However, despite my intentions to revisit the book, reflect on the content, create actionable items to pursue, and draw connections between ideas from other books, it never happens.

In reality, I read a book and move on. My brain doesn’t want to go through the book again to process what I learned. So, I don’t.

But, it still bothers me that everything I consume is only in my head, and very short-lived.

This is where Readwise comes to play. When I make these highlights and notes, they transfer directly into my Readwise account.

  • Kindle highlights are imported automatically.

  • Articles I highlight using Raindrop are imported automatically.

  • With physical books, I snap a picture and select some text with the Readwise app. Those highlights are immediately in Readwise.

I stopped using Readwise for a few months because I wondered if it was worth the subscription price. It didn’t take long for me to go back.

Readwise makes it simple to not only capture these highlights and notes, but to recall them later.

By default, there is a “Daily Review” that surfaces a handful of highlights (the frequency is based on your preferences). We can also create “Themed Reviews”, which are self curated reviews that you can configure based on various sources or tags.

  • I mark actionable notes to my favorites. I have a themed review that surfaces 5 of my favorites every day. Now I can review these as often as needed to keep them top of mind.

  • When I’m studying for a certification, I’ll take relevant notes with the name of the certification. You can even convert these highlights into flashcards where you have to fill in the blank!

If you want to get fancy, you can even add tags and formatting to your highlights right as you capture them using Inline Tagging.

  • If you would like to group multiple highlights into one, you can add a note to each highlight (“.c1”, “.c2”, “.c3”, etc.). Readwise will automatically combine them for you.

  • To add tags on the fly, add it to your highlight note starting with a period.

  • If you want to see your highlights in Readwise, organized by chapter, you can highlight the chapter name, then in the highlight note add “.h1”, “.h2”, “.h3”, etc.

Readwise excels not only in importing highlights from multiple sources but also offers the capability to export them to various note-taking applications, or even as plain markdown files.

It's comforting to know that the interesting things I discover while reading are securely stored in a place where I can easily access them without any hassle.