I have terrible memory, so how best to take notes and be able to search and
find them later is probably something I worry about every single day.
Your current query is about: books and long-form online articles. I am
guessing you mean non-fiction works.
- *Non-fiction books*
- *Physical*: I use highlighter/pen/pencil to underline and take
notes on the pages. Decades ago, I used to consider writing in a book a
sacrilege. Now I am the polar opposite :-)
- *Ebook*: I avoid epub/ebook formats and get the PDF version. If
there is no PDF, I export ebook to PDF. The PDF format supports
annotations. You can annotate (highlight, underline, text, draw,
jot) on a
PDF using PDF programs on desktop (Windows/Linux) and tablets (Android).
And these annotated PDFs are viewable in standard PDF viewers on _all_
platforms. I love this versatility of the PDF format.
- For both types of books, if I like the book, I usually write an *online
post/review* <https://codeyarns.github.io/personal/> with a summary.
So this is the place I first head to.
- *Long-form online articles*
- After reading the article, if I like it, I keep a Markdown file
where I take notes (link to article and bullet list of my summary). This
used to be a ASCIIDoc file, but now that Markdown is supported
everywhere,
I use that. Recently I switched to a Git repo hosted on Github for these
Markdown files. Github has online Markdown viewer and editor, so I can
search, read and edit all in the browser itself!
On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 8:36 AM Srijith Nair <s...@fastmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I would like to pick your brains on how you organise and retrieve
> information that you read in books (physical or ebook) and long-form
> articles online.
>
> Over the years I have been getting increasingly frustrated at not being
> efficient in deriving meaningful value from what I have read and curated
> via notes and highlights from these readings. I wanted to get better at
> retaining what I read and also in being able to connect the dots and
> identifying overlapping and intersecting themes and topics across the
> various books and articles I have read. I also have the recurring problem
> of not being able to remember/find that quote or that impressive eloquent
> passage in a book or article that I read a few weeks or months ago.
>
> Attempts at using Evernote, Notion and other collect-everything tools have
> solved parts of the problem but it does get tedious and, because it is not
> a tool built-for-purpose, it involves a fair bit of personalisation.
> Services like readwise.io attack a slightly different problem from a
> different angle (helping learn by repetition etc).
>
> I was wondering what you have found useful in solving similar problems on
> your end.
>
> As I love to hack code, I have been working on a solution for the last few
> weeks but it is far from perfect or complete. Before I go further down this
> rabbit hole, I thought it makes sense to try and understand if there are
> existing solutions out there that works for you?
>
> Regards,
> Srijith
>
>
