How I Turn What I Read Into Knowledge I Use Everyday

The Reading Workflow That Helps Me Turn Information Into Knowledge

Ev Chapman
4 min readDec 18, 2023

For a long time I read a lot of books and never actually did anything useful with the notes I took.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve tried a lot of note-taking methods. Highlighting, writing in margins, collecting quotes, filing it away in digital filing systems.

And while I accumulated a lot of information. None of it actually stuck with me. Maybe the odd idea here and there. But nothing compared to the amount of time I spent reading.

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But three years ago I started doing something different after reading the book How To Take Smart notes and it’s revolutionised my reading/note-taking workflow.

Here is the system I use to build real knowledge from what I read:

Read → Highlight → Leave Breadcrumbs

I exclusively read books on my Kindle. I love the in built highlighting & note-taking features which make it easy to get my notes into my note-taking system.

Plus I can take a library of books anywhere I go on my phone. So instead of opening my phone to scroll social media, I open it to read.

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Ev Chapman
Ev Chapman

Written by Ev Chapman

Personal Knowledge Coach | I help professionals package their expertise into content & products that generate independent income 💸