How to Retain More of What You Read From Books
There is no best system, but I have a few thoughts.
I endeavor to read 20,000 words each day. I’m often not successful, but it’s a worthwhile pursuit, one I would not care to change. Many of those words come from books, which—as a dyed-in-the-wool bibliophile—are my preferred means of consuming content.
“How do you retain what you read from books?” is a question I receive often.
What my system lacks in complexity it more than makes up for with effectiveness.
For hard copies…
I use a copious supply of Sticky Notes while reading actual books, annotating important points, including novel or compelling research, revealing data, quotes, or both.
What works: Once I’m done reading, I make copies of each page with my iPhone. (The Sticky Notes help me discern what was most relevant for each page). I pull those images from iCloud over to Google Photos, where I then create a folder for each book.
Then, because I have a general idea of what I learned from each book, I can refer back to the content when writing articles or, better still, pull a page/image into the Google Keep app, which converts it to digital text.
(Seems like a lot of work, but I prefer hard copies of books, especially for learning. I feel like it is stickier. Research supports this logic.)
For digital books…
I love digital-book reading for the ease of taking, keeping, and tracking notes. HOWEVER, I don’t enjoy digital readers/reading. That, combined with my feeling that learning is more thorough with hard copies, means I read only about a third of my books via digital readers.
What works for me: Using the Adobe Cloud Library, I create digital annotations via bookmarks or notes, inside the reader. When done with the book, all of my bookmarks and notes, respectively, are in one place, making it easy to copy and paste them individually into a note app. (I’m fond of Bear and Evernote.)
For audiobooks…
Consuming books this way seems to be a great middle-ground between retention & enjoyment. Plus, you can get more books under your belt, take notes while listening and add bookmarks while listening continuously.
What works for me: I keep the note app open while listening to the book; when I hear an important point, I bookmark it digitally in the reader and record the time, along with a brief comment, in the reader. I can then go back to exact locations, type out the notes while listening, and store the notes in the note-taking app.
