Readwise...again

I decided to give Readwise/Readwise Reader a spin again. Craft had a deal with them for 60 days of free usage. I have tried Readwise twice in the past and both times stopped my subscription. It is not a cheap subscription and both times that I tried I had good intentions for using it but I think much of my rationale for using it was based on what others have been doing instead of what I wanted to use it for.

In my attempt to use the web less and read more I’ve run into another weird quirk of my personality: I hate marking up books. That quirk aligns with another quirk that I had related to reading books which was if I started a book I had to finish it. It didn’t matter if I enjoyed reading it or not. Thankfully I have gotten past that as life is too short for such nonsense. But I still hate marking up books. That’s where Readwise comes in to play (again).

The really cool thing about the Readwise mobile app is being able to snapshot a page and add bits of the text as a highlight to the collection. Being able to “highlight” a real book and take notes on those highlights in Readwise is almost a superpower in my mind.

That said the integration with other services is where Readwise really shines. It really is pretty astounding how many sources you can import highlights from. Add on top of it their Reader features like being able to highlight the transcript in a saved YouTube video and it really is a great hub for study. Nobody else is doing what Readwise is doing.

This all works with my desire to do more reading with more intention and depth. I’ve said this to myself before but again before it was more about being like other note-takers than for my own reasons. We’ll see what happens. I’ve got 60 days which is a really good amount of time for a trial (I don’t think their standard trial of 30 is enough even though that is also generous). If it really sticks then I’ll pay for it again.