Magical Workflow: Kindle to Readwise to Notion and Obsidian
I was talking about this little workflow with an acquaintance earlier today. I think it’s great, and feels almost worthy of the word ‘magical’ because it’s so easy to set it and forget it. And it’s a workflow that supports a great thing - learning.
This workflow has these three components:
The Readwise app - which is the connector piece
Somewhere to import highlights from - for me this is my Kindle device
Somewhere to export to - for me this is Notion and Obsidian
There are a whole lot of options for both import and export:
The set it before you forget it part of things is just choosing where to import from and export to, authenticating one time to those to authorize Readwise to connect and sync. Both import and export can sync automatically, and you can do a manual sync at any time in the Readwise app. There are also a few configuration options on the export side of the process, like whether to sync automatically and selecting items to be exported.
Readwise has a companion app called Reader. Reader is in the read it later app category, and is one of the best in that category that I’ve seen. Import sync from Reader is always connected to Readwise and syncing automatically. Here’s what the Reader Library page looks like:
The learning part of this for me is linked to what I read on the Kindle, which is almost all work related topics or topics I want to learn more about. For the pure pleasure of reading, I read novels in paperback form. I highlight text in Kindle books that stands out to me as interesting and /or worth revisiting. Then I (allegedly) carve out time to review those highlights and figure out which I want to create a note about or add to an existing note. Here’s what the Articles library looks like in the Notion Android app:
I’ve found that the highlights in Notion are a “prettier”, formatted a little more cleanly. So when I’m going through the highlights from a book I usually pull up the book highlights in the Notion desktop app, and create a new note or add to an existing note in Obsidian on its mobile app.
Here’s a few more screencaps that show what some book highlights look like in the Notion mobile app:
And one Reader article highlight:
The Reader app supports Send to Kindle, so you can also grab one of those articles you saved for later that still have a TLDR vibe to them, and chuck them over to the Kindle for a rainy day read.
Do any of you use Readwise and Reader? Or have other favorite tools for read it later and doing something with the articles you save and/or the books you read? Is there a better way to do this? Please share any thoughts you have in the comments.