Doug Toft explores his journey to making better notes on his reading. He found trying to summarize what he’d just read was heavy work. And Tiago Forte’s approach of ‘progressive summarization’ wasn’t really helping him.

Perhaps there’s a better way. He quotes Peter Elbow’s great book, Writing With Power. The author says:

“If you want to digest and remember what you are reading, try writing about it instead of taking notes… Perfectly organized notes that cover everything are beautiful, but they live on paper, not in your mind.”

Elsewhere (maybe I’ll find where) I’ve written about how a good way to summarize or paraphrase, to ‘write in your own words’, is to imagine discussing your reading with a friend. You might say: “I read this great book. It was all about…”.

We can easily do this kind of summary in everyday social life, so why not try it with our notes?

Auto-generated description: A group of figures in ancient attire is depicted in a carved stone relief, with some seated and writing as a central figure gestures.

Image: Detail of a relief from Ostia showing writers at desks. (Source)

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