010: Effortlessly Sync Your Highlights
Welcome to Toolbox Tips, Effective’s weekly newsletter aimed at putting more tools in your productivity toolbox.
Early on in my PKM adventures, I was manually taking notes from books. I’d sit down with a capture app like Drafts and start noting things down. Or, even more crudely, I’d write in the book itself and try to photograph and OCR those instances into some app like Evernote.
There was way too much friction with that approach. Sometimes I’d wait months to get notes into a place where I could actually do something with them because the effort to do so was so ridiculously high.
But then I heard Readwise (affiliate) added syncing to Obsidian. If you haven’t heard of Readwise, it’s an app that allows you to import highlights from a variety of sources (Kindle books, the web, Twitter, and more) and surfaces them regularly for your review.
To be honest, I hadn’t used Readwise nor seen the value in it until I tried the Obsidian sync. And that’s when my whole workflow changed.
With this app in the system, I could now highlight a book on my Kindle and have it show up in Obsidian automatically the next time I opened my vault. Then, instead of spending all my energy taking pictures or manually grabbing Kindle highlights, I could invest in doing higher value work: figuring out what I actually think about what I read.
Whether you’re using Obsidian, Logseq, Roam, or Notion for your PKM system, Readwise offers sync options, but it’s not the only tool out there. For example, there’s an open source plugin for Obsidian that fetches your highlights directly from Amazon. It works really well if you’re looking for something a little simpler than Readwise.
But regardless of what option you choose, the point remains the same: automatically syncing highlights removes enough friction to make working with your notes easier and more enjoyable.
ACT: If you’re not doing so already, sync your Kindle highlights to your PKM system of choice using Readwise or another similar service.
Notent Notables
Hello to all 25 of our new members in the last week! It’s so great to have you.
I tried to livestream on Saturday night, where I chatted through my very rudimentary productivity efforts with a new venture I’m involved in. Unfortunately, the stream got cut short from a power outage!
Obsidian has been my go-to note taking app for over two years now. Where do I stand with it in 2022? In this week’s video, I broke down the top six reasons I’m sticking with Obsidian.
Here to Help
I can help you in three ways on your productivity journey when you’re ready:
- Have a question about your system or productivity concept and need help? Ask it here.
- Wanting to level up your Obsidian skills? Check out Obsidian Made Simple.
- Looking to streamline your PKM workflow? Get a 60 day free trial of Readwise.
That’s all for this week. Until next time, stay effective!
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