How To Take Good Book Notes

Here’s what I do when I take book notes for myself.

Since I primarily write down personal things in my bullet journal I have a dedicated book journal now. It’s very fun and I love writing in it.

You can choose to have yours be a part of a notebook you already own, like a bullet journal or planner, or you can have a completely separate notebook primarily for notes and note taking.

A digital journal or a word document for each book also counts as a way to take and keep your notes as well.

You don’t have to actually write every single thought or word down but have a baseline of things you want to keep track of.

I find it hard to remember characters’ names and importance sometimes so as soon as someone is introduced their name and a short description gets written down.

Another thing I know people like to keep track of is favorite quotes from books. I don’t keep track of those things so much but if it’s something you would be interested in I say it goes in the journal.

On the digital note taking front I haven’t tried this very much but I know ereaders and tablets have the feature to highlight and take a note. It’s probably being improved more now that these are popular forms of reading.

I did use this feature while reading google play books but when I went to access the notes google said I had highlighted too much so I would need to go into the actual e-reader to see my notes and highlights. I simply had wanted to copy and paste for my own reference but couldn’t get them on the computer.

So I just don’t have those notes until I get the motivation to go back into the play books app and type some sort of summary. If you like to do those things or feel like you would retain more information by doing this I say go for it.

Another item you can keep in your reading journal is new words you learn. You can highlight and write down the definition for future reference.

Based on the genre I write different things down. For fiction I write mostly about feelings. For non-fiction I write down important people or research and articles to look into later.

You can be as serious or as fun with your notes as you want. You can write down and bash a character or write how much you love a character.

The point of me writing notes now and reading more is that I realized I wasn’t retaining much. I would read something and unless I loved it and re-read it I was not remembering key things about the books.

I’ve read over 200 books in my lifetime and I can remember some things but forget most unless it’s associated with an activity like a book club or books I read for English classes where tests were a thing.

If you are into having a digital space keeping track of your notes with a document online or via notion would be the best option. If you are a memory keeper then simply holding onto the notebook to flip through later will probably be ideal.

Thanks for reading, let me know in the comments what you think about keeping a book journal and if you have ever done so.

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