My 3-Step Process to Read and Remember Stuff

A walk down memory lane.

I remember it happened back in India, and I believe the year was 1976.

Whenever my father's medical practice had an off day, we would go dining, shopping, and to the movies every Saturday. This weekend and every weekend was special to me and my sister since we always got to escape together and have dinner.

With my parents, I began reading.

As part of our regular Saturday tradition, we also used to go to Hobby Corner (a book store) to rent magazines, comics, and books for the following week to read. Since people now have access to Amazons, Kindles, and Audibles, I am not sure if this store exists anymore.

I have read an array of fiction and non-fiction over the years and have read comics like Superman, Batman, Phantom, Mandrake & Lothar, Archies to thrillers from Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, James Hadley Chase to autobiographies of Mahatma Gandhi and many more. Some of the movies that have left a lasting impression on me are — The Poseidon Adventure, Where Eagles Dare, Juggernaut, Hatari, Pappilon, and all movies of James Bond.

As a result, I developed reading habits and enjoyed everything that I read. My only time to take notes was while studying. It would have been nice to have taken notes on my opinions during my childhood about comics, books, and even movies.

However, things have changed since then, the world has become more digital, and educational processes have also evolved.

I have a 3R formula for reading, learning, and writing.

Consequently, my reading habits, writing habits, and the way I sum up my readings have drastically changed over the last few years. As a fellow reader, I would like to share a process I have developed.

Let's take a look at it.

Step 1 — Read.

Reading is the first and foremost step you need to take (as we all should). I read from a variety of sources, including physical books and magazines, Kindle, Apple Books, and web sources.

I highlight the interesting snippets or sentences I find during my reading to retain and remember.

Highlighting is simple for me - I use a highlighter to point out the relevant parts of my physical reads. However, for all electronic media, I use a tool called Liner that works great for me. Liner is a FREE tool that can be used to highlight text on the web or in PDF documents. This is possible with the Chrome browser. I simply adore it.

The inbuilt features in my Kindle or Apple Books let me highlight the different sections of my readings.

The challenge until now has been that all these highlights were existing in a "silo," and I had to check all my sources individually until I found step#2

Step 2 — Review & Retain.

My reading platform of choice lately has been Readwise, which integrates with major platforms like Amazon, Apple, and Good Reads.

The integration allows me to keep all my highlights in one place within Readwise.

Check out this Readwise Tutorial.

My favorite feature of Readwise is that it has an outgoing integration with note-taking programs like Notion and Evernote which keeps all my highlighted notes together in one place, giving me a great deal of convenience.

Step 3 — Reproduce

Once I have all my highlights and captures in Evernote (which works seamlessly), I begin writing my blog posts, articles, newsletters, and scripts for my YouTube channel (Nextgen Digital).

Final Thoughts.

I'll stop here for today, but please let me know if you think the above process makes sense to you.

I'd appreciate knowing if you follow any other method that makes it easier for you to remember. My curiosity will be piqued by the process you use which enhances your productivity.