Last year, I was creating a blog post series for each book I read. After reading a book, I had to go through all my notes and highlights to create a digest in the form of a Google doc that detailed, by chapter, all the important points in bullet format. The result was a summary of each book, by chapter. Most were between 5% and 10% of the book’s length, so for a 250-page book I’d have a Google doc of 12–25 pages. Creating a 12–25-page Google doc takes a ton of time.

I read a book a week, so I had to create these digests weekly. In addition, I was publishing a series of blog posts on each book and experimenting with podcasting by creating a series of episodes on each book. It all felt unsustainable, so I didn’t continue.

I’m reflecting on this today, and I realized a few things:

• Too many new things. Creating the podcast was a ton of effort. Creating the book digest was a ton of effort. Writing a blog post series was a ton of effort. Taking on all these new activities at once likely contributed to it feeling unsustainable. I was never able to find a “groove” for any of the three that felt like second nature. I was just trying to get through it all, but I never felt comfortable with any of it. In hindsight, I should have started with one, gotten that under my belt, and then moved to another.
• Synthesis enhanced my understanding. Creating those digests, which were the foundation for the blog post series, forced me to read analytically. Doing so led to a deeper understanding of what I was reading and helped me uncover more insights and achieve a level of retention I hadn’t experienced since college. When I stopped creating digests, I got less from the books I read. In retrospect, this step, which felt painful, was tremendously beneficial.
• AI can’t save me. I thought I could use AI to help me. My idea was that I could feed AI my highlights and notes from a book and it could create a digest for me. I now realize that this detracted from my understanding of what I read. Reviewing and synthesizing my highlights and notes to create a digest wasn’t fun, but it enhanced my understanding by forcing me to think more deeply about what I’d read. I had to identify the book’s key points, evaluate whether I believed them, and determine whether they supported the book’s main arguments or ideas. Outsourcing that to AI would get me a digest quicker, but I wouldn’t learn, understand, or retain as well—which is the whole point of reading these books to begin with.

I’m really glad I’m doing this Thanksgiving challenge now (see here). I think it’s the start of my figuring out how to sustainably synthesize and share what I learn from books. I’m not trying to check boxes; I’m trying to learn as much as possible from the books I read and share it openly so others can learn too. That’s something I’d strayed away from a bit, but I’m laser focused on it now.