How To Use Readwise

Getting Started (3 minutes)

1. Sign up at readwise.io and connect your reading apps. Readwise syncs with Kindle, Instapaper, Apple Books, Pocket, and a bunch of others. It pulls in every highlight you've ever made.
2. Once your highlights are imported, you'll get a daily email with 5-15 of your best highlights from past reading. It's like getting a curated reminder of the smartest things you've read.
3. Open the Readwise app (iOS or Android) or go to the web dashboard to see all your highlights in one searchable library. Tag them, add notes, or just browse by book or article.
4. Turn on the Readwise to Notion (or Roam, Obsidian, Evernote) sync if you use a note-taking app. Every highlight automatically gets copied into your notes so you don't have to do it manually.
5. Adjust how many highlights you want in your daily review. Go to Settings and tweak the frequency - more if you love the daily ritual, fewer if it feels overwhelming.

How to Actually Remember What You Read

Readwise is built on spaced repetition, which is a fancy way of saying "you remember things better when you see them multiple times over weeks and months instead of once."

• Review your daily email every morning. It takes 2 minutes. Even if you don't remember the book at first, seeing the highlight again cements it into your long-term memory.
• Tag highlights by theme, not by book. Create tags like "productivity," "writing," "parenting," or "quotes to steal." Later, when you need ideas on a topic, search the tag and you've got a gold mine of your own curated research.
• Add your own notes to highlights. When a highlight sparks a thought, write it down in Readwise. Your future self will thank you when you're trying to remember why you highlighted that sentence in the first place.

Pro Tips

• Use Readwise Reader to replace your read-later apps. Readwise has its own reading app that saves articles, newsletters, PDFs, and even YouTube transcripts. Highlight inside the app and it all syncs back to your main Readwise library.
• Connect your Kindle and actually use the highlighter. If you're reading on Kindle and never highlight, Readwise can't do much for you. Get in the habit of marking anything that makes you stop and think.
• Export your highlights before you cancel subscriptions. If you're leaving Kindle Unlimited or Scribd, export your highlights to Readwise first. Once you lose access to the book, you lose access to the highlights unless you've saved them.

What It's NOT Good For

• People who don't highlight when they read. If you never mark up books or articles, Readwise will be empty. It only resurfaces what you've already saved.
• Organizing research notes from scratch. Readwise is for revisiting what you've read, not building detailed research databases. If you need heavy-duty knowledge management, pair it with Notion or Obsidian.