The Digital Reading Advantage
I read almost all my books on the Kindle app on my iPad and all my blogs and newsletters on the ReadWise Reader app on my iPad. Yes, I know; the fad right now among productivity nerds is to go back to paper for the “analog book experience.”
But for me, the advantages of e-books far outweigh any subjective advantages of paper books. I appreciate the backlighting on my iPad and the ability to change the font size, especially as I age.
I like carrying my entire library on one device rather than having several bookcases full of books at home or deciding which books to take on a trip (let alone carry them). Instead, I bring my iPad (or iPhone), and my entire library is available. If you’re interested in reading more about the advantages of my preference for electronic books, see my blog post, The Power of Ebooks: Debunking Myths and Highlighting Advantages.
More than anything, I appreciate the ease of saving my highlights to a searchable electronic collection.
Readwise: My Daily Reading Companion
I’ve been an avid user of the Readwise service for several years. When I highlight a text, Readwise pulls all of the highlighted text out and gathers it together in its electronic database under the name of the book or article.
I use the Readwise service every day:
• It gives me 15 random highlights each morning. I’m often sparked by one of these highlights to record the idea for a potential blog post. Using a shortcut, I jot down a topic and a few thoughts. Later, when I develop the idea, this serves as the basis.
• I have a searchable index of quotes. Often, I’ll search Readwise as a part of my research for a blog post. I’ll either search for some keywords or a specific quote I partially remember. I can also do an AI-aided search of Readwise highlights in DEVONThink, which includes the highlights synced to NotePlan.
• I can easily manipulate the text of quotes. Since Readwise preserves my highlights in electronic form, I can easily manipulate the text if I want to use it in a blog post or other project.
• Readwise provides artistically formatted highlights. When I select an individual highlight in Readwise, it presents it in an artistic format (with options). I often use this format to email or message a highlight to a friend or for a blog post featured image. An example:
When One Highlight Isn’t Enough
Sometimes, authors write in a way that one highlight doesn’t complete a thought or provide context. Concepts are separated by filler or explanatory text, and it is difficult to figure out what is actually being said from just one isolated highlight.
For instance, authors sometimes state a main point, then three or four supportive points. If a lot of wordiness surrounds these, you either have to save one gigantic highlight or make separate highlights of each point. But if you choose to save separate highlights, you now have individual points with no sense of context.
I recently stumbled on a way to string highlights together in Readwise so they all appear together, giving better meaning and context. I found this in a Readwise guide, How to Combine Highlights On-the-Fly with Readwise.
Step-by-Step: Combining Highlights in Readwise
Here’s the process to combine multiple highlights:
• Highlight several sentences or phrases you wish to combine.
• Create a note in Kindle for each highlight you want to combine. To do this click on the highlighted text. A menu bar appears with several options, including a note option. Click on it and a note window appears
• Number each of these notes in sequential order with .c and the number. So, for example, to combine three notes into one Readwise quote they would be sequentially numbered as .c1, .c2, and .c3.
• When synced, Readwise will combine the three highlights and place ellipses between them to show they are not continuous.
This is a great tool when you have multiple highlights that need to be displayed together to make sense. Here’s an example from Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff where three separate points supported one point. They needed to be combined to understand them in context:
A lot of explanatory text separated the individual points. Combining the three highlights into one made them manageable and understandable. If I had encountered the separate highlights, I wouldn’t have understood the context or meaning without combining them.
You can combine highlights when you make the highlights or go back to the text of the ebook and make notes to combine highlights you’ve already made. It functions the same way. Combining highlights does not affect how they sync to Readwise or other apps.
Make Fragmented Quotes a Thing of the Past
As someone who regularly mines my reading highlights for fresh ideas, combining highlights in Readwise has become indispensable. It solves the frustrating problem of fragmented thoughts scattered across multiple highlights.
Try this feature, and you’ll soon wonder how you managed without it.
AI Note: I wrote this blog post myself, using my own words for the initial draft. I used AI only to suggest headlines, section headings, and improvements to the text.
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