How to Capture and Use Your Kindle Book Highlights

I read many books and my preferred type is electronic. While I agree there is something different about holding a physical book in your hand, the convenience of electronic books has outweighed my desire for physical books. Moreover, because I read many books while traveling, the weight of carrying a physical book just isn’t practical.

One of the significant benefits of electronic books is being able to easily highlight passages and take notes while you are reading. It is quick, easy, and very intuitive.

All types of Kindle reading devices — smartphone, a tablet, in a web browser, or on an actual Kindle — allow you to highlight interesting passages in the text with a simple swipe and tap.

For me, the best part is being able to capture those highlights and notes and store them in Evernote so I can have access to them anytime. But being able to capture these notes is not very intuitive.

Fortunately, there is a way to view your Kindle highlights: using your online, web-based Kindle profile. Here is how:

1) Go to https://kindle.amazon.com/

2) Sign in with your Amazon account.

3) On the top menu click on “Your Highlights.”

4) Once you’ve synced your Kindle device and/or app, this page displays all of your book highlights in order of “most recently updated” first. You can view all your highlights for every Kindle book you own from this online Kindle profile.

5) If you use Evernote, you can use the Evernote Web Clipper to capture all of the highlights on the page into your Evernote account.

Clicking on “Your Books” displays a list of every Kindle book you purchased and/or uploaded. You can customize your profile with your name, city, and other details or connect your Kindle profile with Facebook or Twitter.

In previous TechTips, I have talked about using quotes with images to capture a reader’s attention. These highlights can be an excellent source of quotes to use.

Daily Review

Daily Review is another tool that helps you study and remember the most significant ideas from the books you have read. It shows you flashcards with either your highlights and notes or the Popular Highlights from one of your books.

Only books that you have marked as “read” are eligible for review, and Daily Review will take you through all of your read books, one per day.

The periodic review of ideas makes it easier to remember them. This works better if you space the reviews over increasing time intervals, a “Spacing Effect” that was first identified by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus.

Depending on how many books you have marked as “read,” you will see a particular book again in the Daily Review in roughly 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and after that annually. You are not limited to reviewing only one book per day; at the bottom of the flashcard you can select “Review another book.”

Reading is an excellent habit. Reading books introduces you to new ideas and ways of thinking. I have a personal goal this year of reading at least two books per month. Being able to highlight key thoughts or passages while I am reading and then review them later is an excellent way to increase my retention of the material.

What tools do you use as you read to help you increase retention? Let me know in the Comments Section below.