Externalizing is more important than capturing.

For a long time taking notes was my main method of gaining value from books and other media. I’d pull quotes and note interesting concepts with references back to the source. For a while I’d make notes in the margins or sticky notes attached to pages.

That’s what I was taught that taking notes should be.

It feels productive but isn’t really. It’s a form of intellectual hoarding.

I’ve been getting rid of older books and I see these all these margin and sticky notes. I find note cards and other artifacts. And yet, I doubt I could tell you about the content of the books. I suppose I could flip through and look at the notes but I don’t see what there is to gain.

Unless you put ideas into practice, there is no value in collecting them. Hoarded ideas only fade away.

I’ve become a lot more selective with the books I read and the way that I engage with their ideas. Some of these books no doubt had ideas that would still be valuable. There are a few that I plan to read again with a different approach.

Now when I read a book I will stop when I encounter an idea that is actually thought provoking. If the ideas in a book do not cross this threshold they aren’t really worth my time. After stopping I’ll write out a few paragraphs that integrate the thoughts with others that are relevant to me. If I can’t do this, then it wasn’t really that thought provoking.

From the outside this can look like the same thing. You read and then you write some stuff down. But capturing unrefined notes is just a collection habit. Thinking through writing is synthesis by externalization.

Quite often these are ideas relevant to my work or personal projects. So, I’ll go further and fire off an email or create a document in the project that further expands on the idea.

As a result of this change, I read less and more slowly. Sometimes it takes me a month to get through a good book. The more useful the book, the longer it takes me to get through it.

I also feel no remorse in abandoning a book that isn’t providing useful insights. Completing a book isn’t a reward in itself. It’s silly to force yourself to through just to gain nothing.

Productivity media tries to tell us we should be trying to consume more and more information. People challenge themselves to read dozens or hundreds of books per year. I can’t imagine getting real value out of a book read that fast. It’s just performative and self-congratulatory.

All of this applies to other media as well. I’ve limited the amount of YouTube and podcasts I listen to. I got tired of hearing the same things and doing nothing with it.

There are better uses of my time. I bet the same goes for you.