How I read for ideas, not just for pages

On my desk, there's always a small stack of books — some half-read, some just cracked open, and a couple with pages dog-eared beyond saving. I'm the kind of reader who jumps between titles, chasing ideas rather than obsessing over finishing every last chapter.

A couple of years ago, I got a Kindle, and it completely changed how I read. I started using the highlights feature religiously, and every time I came across a sentence or idea worth keeping, I'd tap and save it. But the real game-changer was connecting my Kindle to Readwise. Now, all my highlights sync automatically, and they don't just disappear into the digital void — they resurface in my daily Readwise review, like little postcards from my past self.

And sometimes, those resurfaced highlights land at exactly the right moment. One morning, a Readwise email brought back a line from Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon: "You can't find your voice if you don't use it." That day, I was hesitating over whether to share a new UI exploration on social media — worried it wasn't polished enough. That one line pushed me to post. It led to conversations and opportunities I wouldn't have had otherwise.

I read a lot about creativity, product, business, productivity, and self-development. But I don't see reading as a race to the final page. For me, it's about finding the insights that stick — the ones that actually shift how I think or work — and giving them the time they deserve.

Cover more ground, go deep where it counts

I'm not here to devour every word. Instead, I want to sample more perspectives, then go deep only where it actually matters. That way I'm not just "well-read" — I'm well-fed with the ideas that count.

Start with a summary

Before I sink hours into a book, I'll skim a high-quality summary — Shortform and Blinkist are my go-tos. They're quick filters to see if the ideas are worth a deeper dive. If they are, I commit. If not, I've still taken something valuable without the time sink.

Spend time with the right ideas

When a book passes the test, I slow everything down. I'll spend an hour or two with its core concepts — taking notes, mapping them to my own challenges, thinking about how to put them into practice.

Keeping ideas alive in Obsidian

Reading and highlighting are only part of the process. What matters is making sure those ideas don't fade away. That's where Obsidian comes in.

Readwise is my collection hub. It pulls in highlights from everywhere — books, articles, newsletters, Twitter threads, YouTube transcripts, my Kindle — and instead of leaving them scattered across platforms, it exports them straight into my Obsidian vault.

Every new highlight lands tagged "Readwise inbox," ready for me to process. From there, I connect them to related notes, link them into ongoing projects, weave them into my own thinking.

The best part: they're searchable and ready exactly when I need them. Last month, while designing a property investment dashboard, I pulled up a saved UX principle from a book I'd read over a year earlier. It instantly solved a layout problem I'd been stuck on.

That's the whole point of the system, really. Not to read more, but to make sure nothing I've already learned gets lost — so the right idea is there when I need it, ready to shape the next design, solve the next tricky problem, or spark the kind of work worth sharing.