Book Notes FAQs

How do you take your notes?

My book note-taking practice is heavily influenced from Derek Sivers and how he takes his book notes.

I mostly read from my Kindle Scribe and I use the highlight and note taking feature to capture anything that I find new or useful. I don't capture everything of importance, only those things that I find interesting on new. I tend to read a lot of books on the same topic, so the rating and amount of notes I take varies depending on how much I already have read up on the topic.

After I've completed a book, I export my highlights and handwritten notes to a .txt file that I save to my computer and back up on my server. I'll format the layout into relevant sections, give the book a rating, and record when I completed the book. I then take this and transfer it to my book notes section of my website. The process is very similar for physical books where I underline the passages I want to capture and then hand-type them into a .txt file.

How do you rate your books?

I rate them on a 1-10 scale with 1 being the lowest. I purposely exclude 7 from the rating to force myself to be more critical of my scoring. Seven tends to be the "safe" rating and removing it forces me to really decide if I just liked the book ("6") or if I thought it was worth recommending ("8")

How do you select the books that you read?

They come from recommendations within my network and from people that I trust. I tend to read a lot of topics on how decision-making, leadership, communication, and the behavioral science. I'm not trying to cover off a wide array of subjects and you can determine what I'm most into by what book I've read most recently.

Do you read fiction?

Yes, I read a lot of fiction but I don't take notes for these types of books. My interest varies between science fiction and period pieces. I also read biographies but I only take notes on non-fiction books.