How I Take Notes On What I Read

I set a goal to read 12 books this year, which turned out to be the easy part. The harder problem was making sure any of it stuck.

Here’s the process I’m using for this pillar, and for reading in general:

Highlight sparingly, while reading. Only the lines that change how I’d act, not the ones that just sound good.

Summarize in my own words within a week. If I can’t restate the core idea without the book in front of me, I didn’t actually absorb it — I just recognized it.

Write down one thing I’d do differently. Not a review of the book. A specific change to a decision, habit, or belief. If there isn’t one, that’s fine — but it’s worth noticing when it keeps not happening.

Revisit notes before starting the next book. Five minutes, not a full re-read. Enough to catch whether an idea from three books ago is still sitting there unused.

Posts in this pillar will mostly follow that shape: what the book was actually about, and the one or two things I took out of it that changed something.