Books I have read
This page contains info about books I have read and want to remember. Each book can have its own page for notes, important ideas, quotations, and connections to other things I have learned.
Books
| Book | Author | Year | Subject | My rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building a Second Brain | Tiago Forte | 2022 | Personal knowledge management | ★★★★★ |
| How to Take Smart Notes | Sönke Ahrens | 2017 | Note-taking and knowledge management | ★★★★☆ |
| Atomic Habits | James Clear | 2018 | Habits and behavior change | ★★★★☆ |
| The Extended Mind | Annie Murphy Paul | 2021 | Cognition and learning | ★★★★☆ |
| Getting Things Done | David Allen | 2001 | Productivity and task management | ★★★★★ |
| Goals! | Brian Tracy | 2003 | Goal setting | ★★★★☆ |
| The New Diary | Tristine Rainer | 1978 | Journaling and personal reflection | ★★★★☆ |
| The Bullet Journal Method | Ryder Carroll | 2018 | Journaling to externalize our thinking | ★★★★☆ |
Favorites
Books from this list that have been especially useful or influential:
- Building a Second Brain – Changed how I think about organizing information outside of my brain.
- How to Take Smart Notes – Introduced me to the Zettelkasten approach and the value of connecting notes rather than simply collecting them.
- The Extended Mind – Explores the idea that thinking does not happen exclusively inside the brain and can be supported by our environment, tools, and other people.
Ideas that connect these books
Several recurring ideas appear across these books:
- Externalizing information – Building a Second Brain, How to Take Smart Notes, The Extended Mind, and Getting Things Done all explore ways of moving information out of our heads and into external systems.
- Small actions compound over time – Atomic Habits emphasizes how repeated small behaviors can produce significant long-term changes.
- Goals and action – Goals!, Atomic Habits, and Getting Things Done approach the relationship between desired outcomes and everyday actions from different perspectives.
- Reflection – The New Diary demonstrates how writing can be used not simply to record events but also to think, reflect, and develop ideas.
- Connecting ideas – How to Take Smart Notes and Building a Second Brain emphasize capturing useful information and making it available for future thinking and creation.