My Strategy To Consume Information Effectively

Summary

This video explores an effective reading strategy starting with summaries to understand core ideas before delving into details. It emphasizes the importance of selecting and evaluating books wisely, using 'Short Form' summaries to streamline the process. The host shares personal workflows integrating 'Short Form' with 'Obsidian' for note-taking and knowledge management. Additionally, the video introduces 'Short Form's AI browser extension for summarizing articles and YouTube lectures, highlighting its potential to enhance learning and research.

Takeaways

• 📚 The key to effective reading is starting with a summary of core ideas and gradually adding details.
• 🤔 The quantity of books read per unit time is not the best metric; it's more important to focus on what and how to read.
• 🔍 Reading book summaries before committing to a full book can help filter through the vast amount of literature and save time.
• 📘 Summaries provide an overview of main ideas and structure, which can improve focus and comprehension while reading.
• 📝 Taking notes and having specific questions can keep the brain engaged and thinking critically during the reading journey.
• 🔗 Reading summaries alongside the book can help track progress and is useful for note-taking.
• 📈 Shortform is recommended for detailed book summaries and guides, which include 'content augmentation' for deeper understanding.
• 📚 Shortform's book guides are rich in information and organized, offering a holistic view of the book's content.
• 🔑 The Shortform browser extension can summarize any online content, including YouTube videos, providing an accessible and aggregate source of information.
• 📝 The process of note-taking involves highlighting, summarizing, and refactoring information into atomic notes linked together.
• 🔑 The AI-generated summaries by Shortform include context and background information, enhancing the understanding of the content.
• 🚧 While the AI tool is effective, it has limitations, such as occasional confusion of uncommon words or inclusion of unnecessary information.

Q & A

What is the main argument presented in the video regarding the quantity of books read per unit time?

The main argument is that the quantity of books read per unit time is not the right metric to optimize. Instead, the focus should be on what and how one reads, emphasizing the importance of selecting books that are worth the time and effort and reading them effectively.

Why does the video suggest starting with the summary of a book before reading it in full?

Starting with a summary provides an overview of the book's core ideas, which can prime the brain for incoming information, help maintain focus, and allow for critical thinking and engagement with the content.

What is the significance of book summaries in the context of the vast number of books available?

Book summaries are significant because they help filter through the overwhelming number of books, allowing readers to identify which books are interesting and relevant to them before committing time and effort to reading them in full.

How does the video propose to optimize the reading process for non-fiction books?

The video suggests optimizing reading by first reading the summary of a non-fiction book to understand its main ideas and structure, then reading the full book with an understanding of these key points, and taking notes effectively to ensure the time investment pays off.

What is the role of the 'Short Form' platform in the video's recommended reading workflow?

The 'Short Form' platform provides detailed and holistic summaries of books, which can be used to decide whether a book is worth reading in full. It also offers content augmentation, providing additional insights and background information that enrich the reading experience.

How does the video describe the process of note-taking while reading a book?

The process involves highlighting important points in the book, syncing these highlights to an Obsidian vault via a Readwise API, and then refactoring the notes by rewriting information in one's own words and linking them to existing notes or creating new atomic notes.

What is the advantage of using the 'Short Form' browser extension for summarizing content like articles or YouTube lectures?

The 'Short Form' browser extension allows for the summarization of any content, providing a condensed version of the information along with context and background information, making it easier to decide whether the content is worth investing time in.

How does the video suggest leveraging the 'Short Form' platform for books that do not have a guide available?

The video suggests using the 'Short Form' browser extension to generate AI summaries for books without a guide, which can then be used in a similar way to the platform's book guides for note-taking and understanding.

What are some of the limitations of using AI-generated summaries as mentioned in the video?

Some limitations include the potential for the AI to confuse uncommon words or names, and the inclusion of unnecessary information at times. However, the video notes that these are minor issues and the tool performs well overall.

How does the video recommend integrating the use of 'Short Form' with the note-taking system in Obsidian?

The video recommends using 'Short Form' summaries to identify key points and then syncing these highlights to Obsidian. As the reader consumes the content, they can pause to rephrase key information in their own words, consult the summary for context, and write down notes in Obsidian, linking to existing or creating new atomic notes.

What is the final recommendation given in the video for those interested in trying the 'Short Form' platform?

The video provides a referral link in the description, which offers 5 days of unlimited access and a 20% discount on the annual membership for those interested in trying the 'Short Form' platform.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Optimizing Reading: Book Summaries and Effective Strategies

The speaker introduces an experiment about the quantity of books read per unit time and questions the standard of measuring reading effectiveness. They argue that the content and method of reading are more crucial. The video aims to demonstrate the speaker's approach to discovering and evaluating books, as well as effective reading and note-taking techniques. The speaker emphasizes the importance of starting with a summary of core ideas and gradually adding details. They also discuss the value of book summaries in filtering through the vast number of books available, enhancing understanding, and maintaining focus while reading.

05:02

🔍 Discovering Short Form: A Comprehensive Book Summary Platform

The speaker discusses their experience with the Short Form platform, which provides detailed and holistic book summaries. They highlight the platform's one-page summaries and full guides, which offer a rich, well-organized overview of books and additional context through 'Short Form notes.' The speaker appreciates the platform's content augmentation feature, which provides background information and different perspectives. They also touch on the platform's growing library, despite not having every book available, and demonstrate how they use Short Form alongside Obsidian for effective book reading and note-taking.

10:03

🤖 Leveraging AI for Content Summarization: Short Form Browser Extension

The speaker explores the application of AI in summarizing content beyond books, focusing on the Short Form browser extension. They discuss their skepticism towards AI tools but find the extension useful for summarizing articles and YouTube videos. The speaker describes how the extension provides context, background information, and related literature, enhancing the understanding of the summarized content. They also share their workflow of watching lectures with Obsidian open, noting down key points, and linking them to existing ideas in their note-taking system.

15:05

🚀 Enhancing Learning with Summaries: The Power of Context and AI Limitations

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of summaries in identifying valuable content and enhancing the learning process. They acknowledge the limitations of AI-generated summaries, such as occasional inaccuracies with uncommon terms and inclusion of unnecessary information. Despite these limitations, the speaker finds the tool effective for skimming through videos and articles. They encourage viewers to try Short Form and provide a referral link, inviting feedback and subscription to their channel for more informative content.

Keywords

💡Book summaries

Book summaries are condensed versions of a book's content, highlighting the main ideas, arguments, and structure. In the video, they are presented as a tool for effective reading, allowing viewers to quickly gauge a book's relevance and value before committing to reading the entire work. The script mentions that summaries can prime the brain for incoming information, helping to grasp complex ideas and follow the author's reasoning.

💡Reading approach

The reading approach discussed in the video emphasizes starting with the summary of core ideas and gradually adding details. This method is presented as key to effective reading, ensuring that the time invested in reading yields valuable insights. The script illustrates this by explaining how summaries can provide an overview that aids in understanding and critical thinking during the reading process.

💡Short Form

Short Form is a platform mentioned in the script that provides detailed book summaries and guides. It is highlighted as the go-to place for book summaries, offering a one-page summary for each book in its library. The platform's unique feature, content augmentation, enriches the summaries with additional insights and perspectives, making it a valuable resource for readers as per the video's narrative.

💡Content augmentation

Content augmentation refers to the additional information inserted by the authors of the Short Form guides that is not part of the original book but is relevant and enhances the understanding of the book's content. The script praises this feature for providing background information, different perspectives, and supporting literature, which augments the book's content and offers a broader context.

💡Obsidian

Obsidian is a note-taking and knowledge management tool used by the video creator for organizing and linking information. The script describes how the creator uses Obsidian in conjunction with Short Form summaries and other reading materials to take notes, create atomic notes, and build a personal knowledge base.

💡Readwise

Readwise is a service mentioned in the script that syncs highlights and notes from various reading materials to the Obsidian vault. It is used for automatically linking content from Short Form summaries and other sources, facilitating the organization and retrieval of information within the Obsidian ecosystem.

💡Atomic notes

Atomic notes are individual ideas or pieces of information stored as separate notes in a folder, linked together to form a network of knowledge. The script explains that the creator follows a note-taking philosophy where atomic notes are created from book summaries and readings, allowing for a more interconnected and modular understanding of the material.

💡AI-generated summaries

AI-generated summaries are summaries created by artificial intelligence based on the content of articles, videos, or other media. The script discusses a Short Form browser extension that uses AI to provide summaries of any content, including YouTube videos, offering a quick way to assess the relevance and value of the content before investing time in it.

💡YouTube lectures

YouTube lectures refer to educational talks or presentations available on the YouTube platform. The video script highlights these as valuable sources of information that are accessible, aggregate, and accurate. The creator uses AI-generated summaries to pre-assess the content of these lectures and decide whether they are worth watching in full.

💡Note-taking philosophy

The note-taking philosophy mentioned in the script involves storing individual ideas as atomic notes and linking them together. This approach is used by the video creator to organize information from various sources, including books and videos, into a coherent and easily retrievable knowledge base within Obsidian.

💡Zerocast note-taking system

The Zerocast note-taking system is a method the video creator has been using for over two years, which involves creating and linking atomic notes within Obsidian. The script describes how this system aids in the process of taking notes from lectures and books, turning them into a network of interconnected ideas for easy reference and application.

Highlights

The key to effective reading is starting with the summary of core ideas and gradually adding details layer by layer.

Book summaries can be an amazing tool for more effective reading, especially for non-fiction books.

There are about 150 million book titles written by humanity, making choosing a worthy one challenging.

Books are a high investment, high reward information source, offering years of author's experience and research.

Reading book summaries before committing to the full book helps ensure valuable time and cognitive effort are not wasted.

Summaries provide an overview that primes the brain for incoming information, aiding in grasping complex ideas and following the author's reasoning.

Having a book's summary in mind while reading can increase engagement with the content.

Short Form is recommended as the go-to place for detailed and holistic book summaries.

Short Form summaries are rich in information and well-organized, often containing key ideas and judgments in a streamlined fashion.

Short Form's unique content augmentation feature provides additional insights and context, enhancing the book's content.

The Short Form browser extension leverages AI to create summaries of arbitrary content, including articles and YouTube lectures.

AI-generated summaries provide context and an overview of the subject matter, along with related background information.

The extension simplifies the process of summarizing content without needing to set up an API key or think about prompts.

Lecture recordings on YouTube are valuable for their accessibility, aggregation of research, and accuracy from the authors themselves.

AI summaries can help identify whether a lecture is worth watching by providing a condensed version of the information.

The process of note-taking during lectures involves pausing to rephrase key information in one's own words and consulting the AI summary for context.

AI summaries may have limitations, such as confusing uncommon words or including unnecessary information, but they perform well on a high level.

Short Form's approach to book and content summarization can significantly enhance the reading and learning experience.

Transcripts

okay here's an interesting experiment

for you try typing in reading a book A

Week into YouTube search bar you'll

probably see something like this a lot

what has always puzzled me is who the

hell came up with this standard now

seriously is the quantity of books per

unit time the right metric to optimize

for I believe that what you read and how

you read it are much more important in

this video I will show you my Approach

for optimizing those two things

particularly how to discover and

evaluate what books are worth pursuing

and how to read them and take notes

effectively in order to ensure that the

time investment pays off and in the

second part of the video I will also

show you a way to apply this strategy to

any article or even YouTube lectures if

you're interested stay tuned

I'm gonna

if I were to summarize the point of the

video in one sentence it's this the key

to effective reading is to start with

the summary of the core ideas and then

gradually add details layer by layer

alright let's unpack what this means a

little bit previously I used to think

that the only use of book summaries was

to save me from getting an app in middle

school you know how when you are

assigned to read something but since you

had better things to do you instead just

Google the brief summary of the book

while the teacher is handing out the

quiz well it turns out that summaries of

books especially non-fiction ones can be

an amazing tool for more effective

reading and that is for several reasons

do you know how many books in total

Humanity has written well me neither but

Google says it's about 150 million

titles and let's be honest only a tiny

proportion of them would be actually

interesting and relevant to you so it

seems like picking a worthy one is like

a shot in the dark additionally books

are a high investment High reward type

of information Source it takes about two

weeks to read a single book from cover

to cover but in return you get several

years worth of authors experience and

research now that's pretty powerful this

is why we need to be extra picky about

the next book to invest our time and

effort into and one great way to filter

all this information overload is to

actually read the book summary before

deciding whether it's worth committing

to reading the whole thing this helps to

make sure that you don't waste valuable

time and cognitive effort on something

that would later turn out to be not what

you expected

when you're reading fantasy novels or

detectives knowing the content in

advance takes all the fun out of it but

with non-fiction books it's actually the

other way around checking out the

summary before diving into the content

itself can be super helpful in boosting

your understanding summaries give you a

quick rundown of the main ideas

arguments and the overall structure of

the book having this overview in mind

kind of primes your brain to the

incoming information and helps you stay

focused while reading making it easier

to grasp complex ideas and follow the

author's reasoning plus it sets you with

specific questions and objectives which

keep your brain engaged and thinking

critically throughout the reading

Journey For example suppose in the very

beginning the provides a very detailed

personal anecdote if you are unfamiliar

with the Roth outline of the book it

might seem out of blue and you may lose

interest however if you have read this

summary beforehand you can relate this

story to The crucial ideas coming up

further in the book which makes you much

more engaged with the content it is also

a great idea to read the summary kind of

side by side while reading the book if

you decide that it's worth investing

into the full version this helps you to

keep track of where you are in the books

schema and it's especially helpful when

taking notes but I'll get to that

[Music]

finally the summary can be very useful

even after you read the entire book for

example suppose at some point you'd like

to include or reference ideas from the

book in your own work be it a blog post

essay or just a personal note skimming

through the summary will help you recall

the content and evoke similar chains of

thought and insights you had during

reading also seeing the whole book laid

out like this makes it much easier to

link ideas together now that I hopefully

convinced you that book summaries is

something to consider let me tell you

what I believe is the best place to find

them and how exactly it integrates into

my workflow in my opinion the go-to

place for book summaries is the platform

called short form now they are

sponsoring this video but don't let this

fact put you off personally I have been

using short form for almost two years

now and I genuinely often recommend it

to the people I meet so rest assured

that everything in this video is my

unbiased opinion about the product

product that I love in fact they have no

idea what I'm about to say in this video

okay so for starters short form

summaries or book guides in their

terminology are much more detailed and

holistic than what I've seen on other

platforms like blinkist for example

every single book in their Library

contains a one-page summary which is

like a 10 to 15 minute read containing

the book's key ideas and judge it by my

personal experience in most cases this

is more than enough these one-page

summaries are super rich in information

and are organized extremely well now

seriously I take my head off to the team

of writers who produce them because it

takes a lot of hard work to flesh out

the entire book like this and lay out

the ideas in such a streamlined fashion

and if you want to go deeper some books

not all of them usually the more popular

ones have the full guide feature which

is an even more detailed chapter by

chapter breakdown of the content and the

number one my absolute favorite feature

that makes short form unique is what I

like to call content augmentation

essentially throughout this summary

which outlines the book's key ideas and

takeaways you can see blocks of text

tagged as short form note

this is information which is not a part

of the original book but which was

inserted by the author of the guide as

relevant and because the short form

writers clearly know what they are doing

these notes sprinkled throughout don't

overshadow this summary itself instead

they make a nice addition and truly

augment the book's content for example

such notes often provide background

information on what the author is

talking about different perspectives and

even the drawbacks of the original point

of view backed up by relevant literature

so the name book guide is well deserved

you're not merely reading the drive

summary it's like you're having a

conversation with the person who not

only read the book thoroughly but also

knows background information interesting

facts supporting works and other

perspectives related to it now to the

library you can find books from almost

every field from science and health to

business and finance in terms of the

sheer number of books I'd say it's one

of the short forms weaker signs not

every book is available on the platform

which is not surprising given the amount

of effort it takes to create a book

guide so you might find that only one of

every n books you're interested in has a

short form guide where n really depends

on how peculiar and non-mainstream your

interests are but on the bright side new

books are being added weekly and I think

as the platform grows and scales up this

rate can likely increase in the future

to show you short form in action let me

take you on a tour and actually show you

how I use it in combination with

obsidian to read books effectively

[Music]

so whenever a new book Falls onto my

radar the first thing I do is check

whether there is a short form summary if

there is I begin to go through it and

highlight important points these

highlights can be automatically linked

to my obsidian Vault via a readwise API

as you can see inside the reference

nodes folder there is a subfolder called

readwise which is the home for all the

content generated and synced via

readwise for example not too long ago I

began to read this summary of building a

second brain by Tiago Forte and make it

highlights as soon as I made the first

highlight it was synced and read wise

created a corresponding node inside my

obsidian Vault notice that the author

says short form rather than Thiago Forte

to point out that it's about the summary

of the book and not the book itself in

this case about halfway through the

summary I realized that the book is not

quite what I expected so I usually just

add a little message to myself to know

what exactly happened to reading the

book and keep the note inside the

readwise folder for potential future

reference in case I decide to read the

full book this process goes one step

further for instance take the book when

by Daniel pink which is about how

circadian rhythms affect things like

cognitive abilities focus and mood and

how we can harness the biological clocks

to be most productive and intentional

with our time I recently discovered it

on short form and after reading this

summary I decided to read the full book

for more details especially on chapters

that resonate with me I'm currently

reading it with Apple Books usually on

my iPad or iPhone and as I read I

highlight and occasionally add brief

notes right there in the books app these

highlights are then automatically synced

to obsidian via readwise now there are

two notes corresponding to the same book

this is because one of them was brought

to read wise via short form and contains

highlights and notes that I made on this

summary while the other one was synced

from Apple Books and contains highlights

and notes from the full book itself but

these highlights are usually not the end

goal if you watched some of my previous

videos you may know that I follow a

little cast and note-taking philosophy

where individual ideas are stored as

atomic notes in one folder and linked

together this is why once I fill that my

highlights reach the critical mass so to

speak I start to refactor the nodes

rewrite information in my own words

create new idea notes and Link them to

existing mods it can happen after I

finish reading the entire book or on a

chapter by chapter basis here is an

example of such a refactored book note I

recently finished reading Richard

feynman's autobiography titled surely

you're joking Mr Feynman fascinating

book by the way if you haven't checked

it out I highly recommend it even though

it's an autobiography lay down in the

form of stories there are some

interesting lessons and ideas

interspersed in the narrative such as

the importance of teaching embracing the

Natural Curiosity and drive for learning

scribbled down a few notes while reading

it myself but the amazing summary by

short form really helped me gain an

overview and isolate important points

and here is a more extreme example of

turning the book into Atomic ideas this

is what my note on Scott Young's Ultra

learning looks like it initially started

with highlights as well then I rewrote

information in my own words and because

the book was so good I actually turned

the majority of what I wrote down into

individual ideas as separate markdown

files in my zetelcast and network so now

the resulting reference node just

contains links to the corresponding idea

notes

guides are really amazing when it comes

to books but there are only so many of

them because

a lot of my numbers to put them together

so would it be possible to leverage the

recent advancements in the development

of large language models to create

similar summaries of arbitrary content

well this is precisely what short form

has done now I'm usually quite skeptical

about the swarm of different AI agent

apps out there but I think the new short

form browser extension is the one of the

few that actually makes sense and that

has a lot of potential plus it's very

simple to use you don't need to think

about the prompt no need to set up an

open AI API key just open any page you

would like to get a summary of be it an

article or a YouTube video press the

short form extension icon and voila I've

been playing around with it for a few

weeks now and I can confidently say that

it integrates nicely with how I consume

information particularly the game

changed it for me was its ability to

summarize any YouTube video you see when

I research information for my own video

scripts or just learn for the sake of

curiosity apart from reading a ton of

papers I also watch recordings of

lectures and conference talks and

YouTube has a surprisingly Rich library

of those I found that such recordings

can be amazing sources of information

that are what I call Triple A Accessible

Aggregate and accurate they are

accessible because this speaker usually

explains the topic in a much simpler way

compared to the source paper accounting

for the audience with diverse

backgrounds aggregate because unlike a

paper which Dives very deeply into

tackling an isolated problem talks very

often contain results of many

consecutive papers tied together into a

larger story so you get an overview of

lust in years of the speaker's research

in just one hour finally they are

accurate since the tops are usually

given directly by the authors so you

have a unique chance to acquire some

first-hand knowledge without a risk of

misinformation this makes lecture

recordings an invaluable source of

information but there are a lot of them

so we Face similar problems as with

books though be it on a smaller scale so

just like with books skimming through

the summary of the lecture helps you

identify whether it's something you

actually want to watch because sometimes

it's not clear from the title what the

speaker is going to talk about now

previously I used to just scrub the

YouTube playhead through the video to

get a rough outline of the talk now this

scrubbing which has a visual component

can be augmented within AI generated

summary also it's much easier to take

and refine nodes which I do a lot while

watching The Talks remember what made

the short form boot guide special this

augmentation that gives you a bigger

picture well props to the developers

these AI generated summaries not only

give you a condensed version of the

information but they also contain this

context which is an overview of the

subject matter and related background

information like the research directions

of the speaker or the current problems

in the field

there are also links to further readings

and often paragraphs about counter

arguments and limitations of what's

talked about in the video itself

so nowadays if by scrubbing through the

YouTube video and skimming through this

summary I think that this particular

lecture is worth the time investment I

begin watching it with my obsidian open

next to the browser with a reference

note corresponding to the talk whenever

I hear new information that is worth

writing down I watch a bit further until

the speaker finishes the point then

pause the video rephrase the key

information in my own words and consult

with a short form summary to check how

the AI decided to phrase this finally I

write it down in obsidian usually

following a bullet list format though

sometimes I like to add the admonition

boxes just to spice things up crucially

because I've been using the zerocast

note-taking system for more than two

years now a lot of the ideas mentioned

in various talks turn out to be already

present in my obsidian vault as atomic

notes in this case instead of rewriting

the same information again I simply in

insert a link to the corresponding idea

note sometimes if the lecture just adds

some new details to the existing idea I

would go and modify the idea node itself

and try to write a small summarizing

paragraph in the reference node on my

own like a take-home message finally

it's worth pointing out some of the

limitations of this tool first of all

because it is based on the video

transcript which in turn is generated

via YouTube speech recognition the AI

summary can often confuse uncommon words

like specific terms or people's names

take this example here a wonderful

lecture by Timothy lillycrab on the

biological plausibility of back

propagation which by the way contains

spoilers to my next video this summary

mentions that the speaker is Timothy a

little and sometimes especially in the

beginning of the summary it may include

not necessary information like this

sentence here that the author has been

interested in this topic for a long time

twice but really that's just nitpicking

if you just keep in mind that this is an

AI tool after all which means it may

contain its own quirks it's no big deal

again on a high level it performs

surprisingly well just for fun I

actually ran it on a few of my own

videos and it did a pretty good job it

actually found some super relevant

readings well I hope this video was

helpful if you want to try short pump

for yourself there is my referral link

down in the video description below

which will get you 5 days of unlimited

access and a 20 discount on the annual

membership if you enjoyed this video

press the like button share it with your

friends and colleagues And subscribe to

the channel if you haven't already stay

tuned for more interesting topics coming

up goodbye and thank you for the

interest in knowledge

[Music]