# Using Readwise Created: [[2023_09_02]] 13:44 Tags: [[Explainer]] ![[Using Readwise 2023_10_15-20.26.excalidraw.svg]] I consume a lot of articles from all over the web, most of them being sourced through places like Hacker News (via the fantastic website [HackerDaily](https://hackerdaily.io)). [[Your brain is for having ideas not storing them]]. So I need a system for organizing my reading and being an input into my second brain, and I've found that through Readwise and Readwise Reader. ### Capturing Highlights I prefer reading on an e-reader, so for that reason, I have an advantage when it comes to being able to pull highlights from the things that I read. Most e-readers allow you to export your highlights in some way out of the device, which can eventually be put into an aggregation service like Readwise. I used to read on an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite for example. It is an extremely common e-reader and when it exports your highlights it does so in a simple text file with the highlight, where it was captured (book and location) and the highlighted text. Readwise can then ingest this file to keep a record of the highlights that you have made on the Kindle device. Not all devices have such an easy export experience though, like I lamented in my other article [[Remarkable 2, Great Hardware, Lack-luster Software]], the Remarkable 2 is held back by its software and does not currently offer a way to export the highlights off it. For this reason, I reverted the version of Remarkable to v2 to then be able to install [[Remarkable 2 with Koreader|Koreader onto the Remarkable]], which does have a way to export highlights directly to Readwise on the device. ### Surfacing Highlights I use Readwise for my book highlights and have found it to be an extremely useful way to surface highlights of books that I've read before. I find this useful because it allows me to keep thinking about the ideas that book taught me but well after I've put the book down. I have a home screen widget on my iPhone that constantly gives me a quote from a book or article that I've read before, which prompts me to think about how that might apply to the problems that I'm dealing with today. ## Readwise Reader Readwise Reader is an entirely different beast to the Readwise service, though, and is the primary reason that I pay for the service in the first place. It is an application that allows you to read all the content from the web you want in one consistent environment and organized however you like. It is as if you merged a read-it-later service (e.g. Instapaper) with proper workflows and integrations that make it more than just a graveyard of links. For more, look at [[Organizing my reading with Readwise Reader]] ## References -