徹底改變我知識獲取方式的閱讀神器: Readwise Reader

This year, I discovered the Readwise Reader software. It's revolutionary for someone like me who needs extensive reading and input. It's truly a game-changer. Ever since I started using it, I abandoned all other reading apps. I've centralized all my reading in the Reader. But if you think it's just an e-reading software, you're underestimating it. It's actually a three-in-one tool. It's an information capture software, an excellent reading note and knowledge management software. And it even includes ChatGPT's AI features. Lastly, the Reader is also a content creation and sharing software.

My three-word review of it is, "It understands me." In today's video, I want to share how I use the Reader to double my knowledge acquisition efficiency. Whether you are a content creator, student, or researcher, anyone who hopes to learn knowledge through reading and solve problems, this video will help you. I also got a benefit from Readwise for everyone, Registering Reader through my exclusive link gives you two months of free use. That's one month longer than the official offer.

Before sharing in detail, it's very necessary for me to explain my reading purpose and workflow. I read mainly for two purposes: One is for content output. Reading is my primary source of inspiration and knowledge. The second is to solve my problems. I call these two purposes specific projects. So, I never read just for the sake of reading. but for the final output and action. I demand that all collected information finds a destination. I call this destination a project box. You can think of each of my video ideas, or the problems I want to solve as a box.

I stuff all related content into this box, digest and absorb it, then transform it into my output. I've talked about this in my previous 'second brain' video, highly recommend you to watch it. Just mentioned, the three key features of Reader perfectly match my reading purpose and process. That's why I say it understands me. Now, let's look at them one by one. First, Reader is an information capture tool. Similar to the familiar read-it-later software. Apart from common text sources,

Reader also supports multimedia sources like YouTube videos. Let's take a look one by one. First, text-based sources: articles, blogs, tweets, newsletters, RSS feeds, and books. For example, if I find an article interesting, I simply click the Reader browser plugin. It's collected into Reader's inbox. But the powerful part of Reader is, it can directly make highlights, notes, and tags on the original webpage of the article. Even use AI functions. All these tasks automatically sync to your Reader software. This way, it doesn't interrupt your workflow.

Of course, you can also choose to do these in the Reader software. We'll talk about these note and management functions in a moment. Oh, and Reader is also a cross-platform software, available on phones, iPads, a nd web browsers. And it's cloud-synced. If I find a good tweet on my phone, I can directly collect it into Reader. This tweet will appear in the Twitter category there. We'll talk about these category views on the left in a moment.

Another very important text source for me is the newsletter. The biggest problem with newsletters is they clutter your email inbox, mixing with other emails. It's inconvenient to manage. Reader solves this by providing you with a virtual email address. You can use this address to subscribe to various newsletters. This way, all newsletters will be centralized in Reader's feed for reading and management. Your own inbox will be much cleaner.

This Reader feed not only collects newsletters, but also RSS feeds. If you subscribe to a website's RSS, when its content updates, it will automatically be pushed to your Reader. To subscribe to a website's RSS feed in Reader, you can simply click 'add feed' and enter the website address. Then, Reader also suggests RSS feeds based on your reading content.

You can add them according to your interests. OK. Books are my most important source of knowledge. Here's a little secret: I almost never read physical books. Whenever you see me with a physical book in my program, it's just for the video effect. Most of the time, I only read e-books, because they're more convenient for making highlights, notes, and searching. And I can read them anytime, anywhere. Previously, I used Apple Books and Kindle, but with Reader, I've abandoned them. Reader supports EPUB and PDF files. Click here to upload files. EPUBs are automatically categorized in the book view, while PDFs go into the PDF view.

Then, you can read, take notes, and manage. These are how I collect text-based information sources. I mentioned earlier, Reader's strength also lies in its ability to collect videos. For example, if I find a great YouTube video, I click the Reader browser plugin, and it's collected in Reader's video view. Why use Reader to watch this video?

Because if the video has subtitles, these subtitle texts will be displayed like an article, scrolling along with the playback progress. And you can highlight them like you would in an article, take notes, and use AI functions. If you're watching a video in English, you can use Reader's AI feature for translation and explanation, which is great for language learning. We'll talk more about this later. Okay. So that's how I use Reader to collect all my reading material, completing the first step for my project box. Next, I need to organize and read these contents,

which is the most important step. Even if you collect the entire internet in Reader, it's pointless if you don't read it. Otherwise, you're just hoarding information. But Reader's reading feature is more powerful than any other software I've used. Reader's reading functions can be divided into highlights, notes, AI-assisted reading, and tags and view management. To highlight a sentence, just use your mouse or finger on a phone to select it. You can also take notes on highlights. Click the icon on the highlight, and the note will appear alongside and in the notebook here.

OK. Apart from taking notes, you can also tag your highlights, but we'll talk about that later. One of the features of Reader that excites me the most is its integration of ChatGPT. All you need to do is enter your OpenAI API. We click on the highlight, then click these three dots and choose invoke ghostreader. You can see it embeds several functions: simplify, translate, summarize, write Haiku, make memory cards, and customize. For example, I click translate, then choose Chinese.

Then ghostreader starts working. Okay, the translation is placed in the notes of the highlight. Of course, you can also use custom prompts. I click custom, delete the existing prompt, and write my own prompt. Asking it to explain the meaning of this paragraph. Then it appears in the notes on the side. The ghostreader I just mentioned is for AI assistance with highlights. Actually, it functions differently at various levels of the document.

For example, if I select a word, and then launch ghostreader, the appearing menu will have options like define, encyclopedia, terminology, search, translate, and customize. This is different from the menu when selecting a sentence. Similarly, you can also use ghostreader to perform operations on the entire document. For example, you can ask the document questions, summarize, create questions based on your highlights, Q&A, and customize, etc. Seeing this, you might understand why I like Reader so much. All my reading-related work can be done in this one app.

It even includes ChatGPT functionality, saving me the time I used to spend switching between different apps. OK, let's continue. All the highlights and notes we just mentioned are stored in the notebook on the side. Reader is quite thoughtful, as it allows you to export all of them. This is a very important and useful feature. Because not only can you import this exported content into other note-taking software,

but you can also turn these exported highlights and notes into a knowledge base. Put them into GPT, to create a customGPT. This opens up endless possibilities. For example, I'm working on a video about Elon Musk's biography. I turned all the highlights and notes into a custom GPT. So I can ask specific questions to find arguments for my video. OK, we've covered Reader's reading, note-taking, and AI features. But reading and note-taking alone aren't enough. I also need to manage these things. Reader's tags and views

are the boxes I use for categorization. First, let's talk about tags. Reader has two types of tags: one is for documents, and the other is for highlights. Document tags are for categorizing the entire document. For example, I often share excellent content I've read on a membership website. Like a YouTube interview video, I would tag it with a 'member share' document tag. 'Member share' is one of my boxes. But how do I find all the content that I've tagged? You see, there is a view on the left side.

I click into it, and then I can see all the documents with that tag. Each of your tags can be turned into a custom view and placed on the left. For example, I click 'manage tags' here, click the 'economic recession' tag, and we can see all the documents I referred to for that video. If I want to quickly access this tag, I can add it to the view bar on the left. Reader's view management is very powerful. For more details, I suggest checking out the official tutorial. OK, besides tagging documents, Reader can also tag highlights.

This is even more impressive. For example, in my membership site's book club, I prepare discussion topics for each book we read. My approach is to first read the book, make highlights while reading, and if something inspires me, I add a 'discussion question' tag, and write the question there. Or, if I come across a mention of another book in a document, I highlight the book name and add a 'book' tag. Recently, I learned a new technique from my members, to create an English vocabulary book using tags. For instance, when I see a new word,

I highlight it, and ghostreader provides the definition. Then, I add a 'vocabulary' tag. This way, I can compile a vocabulary book. OK. After tagging these highlights, how can I find their collection? This is somewhat tricky. You can't directly find a summary of these highlight tags in Reader. You need to look for these tags in Readwise. Open Readwise, click on highlight tags, and they are there. I click on the 'book' tag, and can see all the book names I've collected.

Regarding how to use Readwise, I won't go into much detail now. There are many tutorials available online. But, what I want to say is, the current experience between Reader and Readwise is still somewhat complex and disjointed. In my opinion, they are likely to merge into one software. OK. Now, back to my project box workflow. We've completed the collection of information, categorization, reading, and assimilation. The next step is output. Typically, I gather my notes according to tag classification, and then write scripts in other software to film and share. But surprisingly, Reader itself is a succinct tool for creation and output.

For example, For the YouTube podcast That I watched a moment ago, I made many highlights and notes. I click here, to get the document's share link. Then I post this link on my membership website. Even if members don't have the Reader app, when they open it, they can see the original text, my highlights, and my notes. This feature is just fantastic. If you are a teacher grading students' work, you can use this feature. Or if you're sharing and annotating articles with colleagues, classmates, or team members.

Apart from this kind of sharing, you can also export a single highlight as a beautiful image to share on social media or other places. The image design is very elegant, much better than simply copying text. OK, that's a brief overview of Reader, my simple sharing. It actually has many more features that I can't introduce one by one. I will gradually post these detailed tutorials on my membership website. Some may say that other software also has features similar to those of Reader, but you won't find another one like it that almost consolidates the entire reading workflow

into one software. This is what makes Reader unique. If you are someone who loves reading or wants to develop a reading habit, I highly recommend you use my exclusive link to sign up for Reader. You can get two months of free use, which is one month more than the official offer. I am confident that once you start using it, you won't go back. OK, that's all for today's video. Thank you for watching, and see you next time. Goodbye.