On reflection, in my prime youth, I was never an avid reader – I remember I spent late evenings of my year 9 and year 10 watching TV shows like (Hollyoaks, Simpsons) after coming back from school. But, everything changed when I enrolled into university – reading was an imperative part of my growth which I mostly did with hardbacks and now through digitalisation reading has become more effective through various tools.

Late last year, I’d taken an approach to utilizing my book reading to a whole new level. I systematised the way I approached my reading and I did this using the following method and tools stated below.

Tools

1. Amazon Kindle paperwhite – I consider this to be most valuable purchase of 2019.
2. Goodreads – an account that stores all your highlights and notes
3. Notion – to create my own personal account of information hub of all the books I have read and try implement the material into my life where possible.

My three method process

Why Kindle?

With digitalisation on rise, I always felt moving away from your standard hardback was a good call. But with every transition, you always need to take baby steps. I started using Kindle for two reasons.

1. Financially it costed less than your standard hardbacks or paperbacks.
2. My need for minimalism – I often found it difficult to store copious amounts of book in my room.

What is Goodreads?

A website that allows users to account for the books they have read throughout the year. An advantage of using Goodreads is allows users to assign a number to the amount of books they intend to read in that year. I find this to be quite useful because it’s a challenge that I look forward to completing. In addition, Goodreads can be synchronised with your amazon kindle account and it is able to store all your highlights and personal notes that you make on your Kindle.

Why do I use notion?

When I do finish reading a book – I spend half an hour of my time collating all my highlights and notes and store it in my “digital brain” aka Notion. However, during my reflection period, I do the following:

I implement the learning or principles from the book into my life (wherever applicable).

As I conclude to whatever method or tools you apply to reading a book – I think its imperative to utilise its learning to your advantage. Hence, having a digital brain is highly important because your brain isn’t meant to store information. More on digital brain can be found of my previous blog post called Secondary network.

Productivity Amazon Kindle Goodreads Notion Secondary Brian