in this video i'm going to take you
through the seven levels along the
journey of trying to remember everything
that we read hey friends welcome back to
the channel if you're new here my name
is ali i'm a doctor based in the uk and
on this channel we explore the
strategies and tools that help us live
healthier happier more productive lives
and if you're anything like me and
you're interested in personal
development
lifelong learning becoming a better
thinker and all that stuff you'll know
that reading
is a very important part of this but if
you're anything like me you've read a
lot of books but you've probably
forgotten the vast majority of the stuff
that you've read
and probably haven't applied it to your
life in the way that you'd liked a few
months ago i realized that this was a
big issue for me and so i've been
actively working to try and remedy it
and so in this video i'm going to share
what i think are the seven levels along
this path of trying to remember more of
the stuff that we read and apply to our
lives we start off our reading careers
at level one
the muggle this is basically where we
read stuff but we're just reading it
we're not highlighting it we're not
taking any notes we're not really
engaging with the material beyond just
passively reading it and when we're
muggles and trying to learn about a new
topic like entrepreneurship or whatever
we'll end up just reading loads and
loads and loads and sort of hoping we're
gonna passively absorb stuff by
diffusion by osmosis whatever but we're
not like
actively using any brain power to engage
with it this is fine if we're reading
fiction but for non-fiction and when i
read non-fiction i kind of want to get
some insights from it i want to learn
stuff i'm a dumbass and therefore i just
forget everything that i read and
therefore this isn't good for me and
it's probably not just me because there
is a phenomenon in memory research
called the forgetting curve which just
shows that over time our memory for
everything decays unless we find a way
to engage with it or consolidate our
memory of the thing at some point we
might realize that our muggle existence
is pretty unfulfilling and so we'll come
across
level two of the journey which is the
squid and when you become a squib at
level two
you're now reading stuff but you're
highlighting or underlining the things
that particularly resonate with you this
is easy enough to do if you read on a
kindle
or you can use one of these like old
school things i don't even know what to
call anymore because who even uses this
stuff and this is what i was doing since
i first got a kindle in around 2008 2009
all the way through to 2018 when i
discovered that actually there were more
levels along this path and this is fine
because highlighting stuff is
kind of nice and it's kind of fun to use
one of these old-fashioned antique
devices
but the problem with highlighting stuff
is a we actually don't
remember the stuff that we highlight and
there is a mountain of evidence that
shows that highlighting or underlining
does nothing to actually improve our
memory of the stuff and we also run into
the issue that we've got all these
highlights but they're sort of hidden
away inside our book or inside our
kindle and we don't really have a reason
to go through them so that was me from
2008 all the way through to 2018 those
were the dark days
but then in september 2018 i reached
level three which we're calling
hufflepuff and level three hufflepuff is
when you have a systematic
system for reviewing your highlights so
in september 2018
i discovered this amazing service called
readwise link in the video description
and what readwise does is that it
automatically connects to your kindle
account and it pulls in
all of the highlights you've ever
highlighted from all the books that
you've read and what they do is that
every day they send you an email with
five random highlights so i started
using read wise in september 2018 and
i've been getting this email every day
and for the first few months
i was religiously reading this email and
i found oh well
this thing that i highlighted five years
ago is now very relevant to me today and
the read-wise email has surfaced it for
me which was really awesome
but over the last two years i've kind of
become less and less religious
about reading my five daily things in
the read-wise email i still get it i
still open it from time to time but it's
a bit too passive for my liking
and that is when we get to level four
and we're calling level four ravenclaw
because i couldn't think of anything
else and i deeply apologize for playing
into the stereotype i didn't mean it i'm
work
trust me but level four is what i talked
about in my video about the magical
insight logging framework which will be
linked somewhere up here and basically
this is a system whereby you
automatically pull in your highlights
into a central note-taking app
and so we can see here i've got my
read-wise database which has all the
books and it shows all the
all the highlights i've made in each one
so i can look at the books and we can
see i've got 126 highlights from tools
of titans all of which are going to be
in here
and it also links very nicely to the
location and it opens it up in the
kindle web app if that's what i want to
look at we also have articles over here
so this is taking all my highlights from
instapaper
and we even have tweets so these are
tweets that have saved to read wise that
are automatically coming into notion
and we have podcasts that this is
podcast air quotes that i've taken
through the app air to io
again a lot more details about the
system in my magical insight logging
framework video which will be linked up
there
and so this is level four this is where
we've got a tool that automatically
pulls in our highlights and because i
use notion for absolutely everything in
my life
pretty much it's all very convenient
when it's sitting there but
level four is still a little bit
problematic because this is still very
passive all we're doing at this point is
we're bringing in highlights
and we're hoping that our future selves
will at some point revisit the
highlights just because we want to and
again i've been doing this for a few
months now but i found that inevitably
other things were coming up and i was
not finding the time or making the time
to actively review the highlights of the
stuff that i'd read
in notion and this is where we start to
get into the fun territory because now
we have level 5 which is dumbledore's
army and when you're at level 5 or a
member of the da
you engage with books by taking quick
notes on the stuff that you've read now
i'm going to show you how i do this in
notion so i've got this book known to
database that has
all of the books uh that i read fiction
and nonfiction and for each of these
categories fiction and non-fiction i've
created templates that i use
for my very quick book reviews and so if
i've just read a non-fiction book i will
put a non-fiction book template here
so it asked me to give the title of the
book i can select a genre so let's say
productivity philosophy
and magic why not and i can say the date
that i finished it let's say that was
today and basically what this notion
template does is that it creates these
categories for me so firstly the book in
three sentences
impressions how i discovered it who
should read it how the book changed me
and my top
three quotes from the book so this is
actually very quick
and this level level five is what i
regret not doing with everything that
i've ever read
because if you can just summarize a book
in three sentences that's like a really
fantastic way of actually engaging with
the content and as someone like richard
feinman would say
it's a way of actively ensuring that you
actually understand the concepts in the
book and so here are some notes that i
took on show your work by austin cleon
the book in three sentences share your
thoughts and your process and your work
online for free
you don't need to be an expert to share
your work beginners can easily help
other beginners
and three by sharing your work online
you'll attract an audience of people who
care about the same stuff as you do and
this can change your life so that that
was kind of my
three sentence summary of the book then
i've got impressions where i just sort
of write subjectively what i thought
about the book
i have who should read it occasionally i
have how i discovered the book if i
remember how i discovered it and here
are some notes on how the book changed
me and my top three quotes
now the point of this system is that it
does take a small amount of time to
actually think about
but it's not a large amount of time and
like i really wish that if i'd done this
for every book that i've ever read
i know i will be i'd like today i'd be
infinitely more knowledgeable about all
this stuff than i am
just because i just never considered
engaging with the stuff so level five
is i think a good sweet spot between the
amount of effort it takes to do this i.e
it doesn't take that much effort but i
think it also gives you a lot of value
when you can start summarizing
books in three sentences and if we're
doing it for fiction this is what the
template looks like for that so we've
got a section about
what it's about how i discovered it
general thoughts and who would like it
so again all of these templates are
linked in the video description so you
can check it out
and if for some reason you don't yet
have a notion account you should follow
the link in the video description and
get it for free
notion is an absolutely amazing app that
i've been using since early 2019 and
it's fair to say that it's probably
changed my life i organized my entire
life around it i organized my whole
business i used it to take notes in
medical school and to prepare for
my medical exams used to track my
workouts i use it to write book reviews
i use it to script all my videos and to
work with my team
it's just got so many different use
cases and i've got tons of videos about
notion that i'll be linked in the
playlist over there
and best of all it is completely free
you only pay if you're going for one of
the team plans or if you need like
additional bonus features
but most people can use notion
completely free of charge basically for
as long as you want so hit the link in
the video description if you
haven't got a notion account for
whatever reason and if you do there'll
be a link to my kind of booknotes
template
thingy so you can duplicate that into
your own notion workspace and then you
can start taking notes from books
which will kind of get you to level five
but yeah thanks notion for sponsoring
this video let's now move on to level
six
now this is where we start to get really
interesting because level six is the
order of the phoenix and the only
difference between level five and level
six is that in level six
you're still doing all of this stuff
you're still writing kind of book in
three sentences impressions how it
changed your life
but we also have a section for a summary
and notes on the book itself so what i'm
trying to do
with all of the books that have
particularly resonated with me over the
years books that i would break five
stars or books that i think have changed
my life
what i'm doing is i'm going through them
again and i'm writing literature notes
i'm
sort of creating my own mini summary of
the book
but i'm focusing on the points that have
particularly resonated with me or points
that i found particularly interesting or
insightful or surprising and i think
this is just a really great way of
engaging with the book
but it does take absolutely ages so for
example the other day it was one o'clock
in the morning and i was in bed and i
couldn't sleep so i got up my ipad pro i
switched everything to dark mode
and i had kindle on one side of the
screen and notion on the other side of
the screen
and i was taking literature notes from
the e-myth revisited
which is a book about how to kind of
build a small successful business
i first read i think in july 2019 and
that book completely blew my mind
and so i was revisiting it and
relearning some of the lessons from it
and as i was doing that i was taking my
literature notes i was sort of
summarizing bits in my own notes
and although it took absolutely ages and
i still haven't finished it i'm still
only halfway through the book it's
actually giving me a lot of new insights
because it's so rare to find a book
that's genuinely
sort of actually life-changing and so
when you do like now when i do
i'm gonna make a point that i'm gonna
write my own summary of this book
so that i can really consolidate the
points for me there's a few things to
keep in mind about this so firstly um
there's a very good book called how to
take smart notes by sanki orange and
i've actually done my own summary of
this
yeah here's a summary that i've done
using the toggle feature in notion where
i've basically written like a whole load
of stuff and even drawn my own diagrams
and tables and things about
oh my goodness there's quite a lot of
stuff here how many words is this this
summary plus some of the highlights is
6851 words so i've spent a very long
time taking book
taking notes from this meta book called
how to take smart notes but this is
really good and
this book talks about the zettel casten
method of note-taking
which is kind of what inspired this
video and
sort of one level of this is as you're
reading stuff you're taking literature
notes but the idea of literature notes
like these summaries that we're making
for ourselves
is that we want to avoid copying and
pasting quotes from the book we want to
actively try and rephrase things in our
own words
just to make sure that we understand the
concepts and the other benefit of taking
your own book notes is that
if you are interested in sharing your
work online you can actually publish
your book notes the first person i saw
do this was derek sivers who i've been
following since 2016 and who
featured in a deep dive on this channel
very kindly of him and he's basically
been taking these detailed notes on
every book that he's read
and he's got like hundreds of these on
his website at sivir.rs again that'll be
linked in the video description
and also my new friend natalia who again
was featured on deep dive
has this amazing website his blog
generates
six figures a year for him in revenue
maybe even more than that
and a big part of his most popular posts
are his summaries notes and reviews from
books that he's read so this is kind of
the level where i want to get to where
you know in the future on my website
aliabdull.com forward slash booknotes
uh you'll find all of these summaries of
books and i think this is just like an
incredible resource and if anyone's
considering starting a personal blog or
a website or a youtube channel
taking notes from books is such a big
value ad because
a lot of people don't have time to read
or think they don't have time to read
and there are also so many good books
out there that if you can act as the
curator
something you know someone like nat or
derek or what i'm trying to do if you
can curate the best books
you know anti-fragile binder scene talib
for example he's got his notes on here
he's got a podcast episode about this
this is such good content and this is
the sort of stuff that really kind of
helps you build your own brand as a
sharer as an educator
and it's just a pretty fun thing to do
so this is where i'm kind of aiming
with level six but then we come to level
seven which is dumbledore himself and
this is where we're really going
full ham on the settle casting method of
note taking this is sort of where i'm
hoping to go eventually i've only really
done it for a handful of books but
every time i've done it i found the
exercise to be quite useful and
the idea behind this is that once we've
taken our literature notes about the
book
what we're going to do is we're going to
turn them into permanent notes
as in the zetterle casten method or in
evergreen notes as andy matashak who is
this also kind of note taking guru on
the internet
that is sort of the vibe i prefer the
phrase evergreen notes because i think
it sounds a bit better
and so for example i have got this
database on again on notion
of evergreen notes and the idea behind
evergreen notes is that
they're notes on topics that you find
interesting or that particularly
resonate with you
but they are atomic notes in their own
right like the note is
self-contained and very heavily linked
to the other notes you've got in your
system and the slit box again
sanki irons talks about this in how to
take smart notes this
is i think zettel casten translates to
slip box it was like a method that this
german called lumen used to use
back in the day and he churned out like
loads and loads and loads of manuscripts
and publications and books because he
had the systematic way of taking notes
from the stuff that he read
and so for example what i've got is i've
got these different sections life
happiness meaning work reading luck
improvement relationships marriage
helping people decision making money
lifestyle writing etc etc
so a lot like all of these are topics
that i'm interested in
and as i read stuff in books articles
podcasts tweets whatever
what i'm trying to do slowly very slowly
over time is turn these into evergreen
notes
and then having like this index for
evergreen notes so for example
you know the four important things in
life what's in this one
this is money love relationships mental
health wellbeing happiness and physical
health
and i found this from a episode of the
samantha ryan podcast that naval was on
and so i turned it into an evergreen
note i linked to the source
and notion now has backlinks and so for
example
if i want i can see what links to this
page so the idea money leads to
happiness
links to this page so that is related to
the note and we we can see
using the backlinks how this all kind of
relates together this system this kind
of level seven
zettel casten slip box evergreen notes
double door note taking whatever you
want to call this system
this is a little bit niche and i'm not
entirely
sold on the power of it yet i can see
from reading how to take smart notes and
from reading
the work of other people on the internet
who have done this sort of thing people
say it's really useful
i like me personally i'm very slowly
starting to head in this direction
but i don't think i've given it enough
time or stuck with it for long enough
to actually be able to comment on
whether it's actually helped me it is
kind of nice in a way because it helps
you
consolidate your thinking on all sorts
of different subjects especially if you
have a lot of interest
it can be kind of hard to keep track of
all the stuff that you've read but this
is one layer of abstraction above the
things that you read
figuring out a way to consolidate the
insights from them for example
so coming full circle if i were to give
advice to my previous self i would say
that it's really really useful to be at
least at level five of the system
it is very very easy to get to level
five basically you get to level four by
following the magical insight logging
framework linked up here
and then for level five all you have to
do is you can use my notion template if
you want but you don't have to
all you have to do is just write a
summary of the book in three sentences
three because it forces you to be
concise and it doesn't take very long
and just write a few words about what
you thought about the book you know this
is the stuff that we used to do when we
were in primary school the teachers
would say write a book review of this
this book that you read and again like
if i could give
those a single piece of advice to myself
when i was like 12 i would say look i'll
leave me
you need to just write summaries in
three sentences of all the books you've
read
and just write your thoughts on them
because in 10 years time in 20 years
time you're going to be so incredibly
grateful that you've got this
treasure trove of knowledge inside a
system other than your brain
because you're a dumbass and you're
going to forget everything that you read
otherwise if you like this idea and you
haven't yet seen the video about the
magical insight logging framework with
this which is this automatic way of
capturing highlights from books articles
podcasts and tweets then
click the video over here that will be
the video about the magical insight
logging framework
thank you so much for watching do check
out my notion template in the video
description and hopefully i'll see you
in the next video bye