It isn't effective unless you summarize it for yourself.

Published Oct 15, 2025 · Around 2 minutes to read

I forgot to read a book for book club. So on the day of the discussion, I asked ChatGPT to summarize the book’s actionable points. The AI summary felt flat. And I forgot the points immediately because I hadn’t spent the time absorbing it.

Thankfully, the book club got postponed and I actually read the book (Crucial Conversations). And it was great. There were stories and perspectives that helped me absorb the lessons better. Plus I wrote my own summary of the book, which is more effective for recalling in the future.

Human authors put words together for deeper meaning, not because they’re statistically likely. Human words have power. Summaries neutralize it.

And this goes for meetings and research as well. There are highlights that I’d identify as critical which gets glossed over when summarized by others, AI or human.

I've found Tiago Forte's Progressive Summarization effective in building my own: Progressive Summarization. It allows me to create different levels of summarization, so I can quickly dive in deeper across my notes.

I’ve struggled with organizing my notes. My notes are scattered across Notion, Granola, Google Docs and email. Static and disconnected. I’ve tried several methods to control them: PARA method, Johnny.Decimal, Atomic UX Research. The methods are good, but it’s manual and tedious.

My hunch is that a combination of RAG + AI Agent can create dynamic, personalized notes that supercharges your knowledge.

But no shortcuts, you have to put in the work of understanding things yourself first.

“Borrowed wisdom breaks under pressure because you haven't earned it. You're trusting someone else's compression without knowing what created it.” — Shane Parrish

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P.S. I hated reading in school. Sparknotes was a savior.

P.P.S. I’m excited to try Atomic UX Research again, but this time with RAG. I built the last knowledge base with Notion tables and it got unwieldy really fast and nobody used it.

P.P.P.S. I cancelled my Blinkist subscription. I love the product, but I need my own understanding of subjects. And the stuff I’d highlight might be way different than Blinkist’s.