**Forget Your Reading Journal, Do This Instead — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/forget-reading-journal-do-instead/

Learn a 3-step method to actively engage with books and videos to reduce information overload and improve retention.

## Key Takeaways

- Information overload leads to passive consumption and poor retention.
- Active engagement through annotation and note-taking improves understanding and memory.
- The learning process should include applying and teaching the material to solidify knowledge.
- Techniques can be adapted for various media formats beyond books.
- Personalizing the content by making it 'yours' is crucial for deeper learning.

## What the video covers

- The video addresses the common problem of information overload and passive consumption in today's content ecosystem.
- Rachelle shares a three-step method to transform passive reading and viewing into active learning.
- She emphasizes annotating and engaging deeply with texts to make the content personally meaningful.
- The method applies to books, YouTube videos, podcasts, and other media formats.
- Using examples like 'How to Read a Book' and 'Dracula,' she demonstrates annotation techniques for nonfiction and fiction.
- If annotating books is not possible, she suggests using a notebook to capture important notes and page references.
- The goal is to move information from short-term memory to long-term learning by actively interacting with the material.
- She encourages integrating learning into daily life through teaching, writing, or creating content based on what you consume.
- The video includes practical tips on how to implement these techniques quickly and efficiently.
- Rachelle also mentions tools and digital alternatives but prefers handwriting for deeper learning.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction to Information Overload and Passive Consumption
2. 01:25 The Illusion of Learning in the Digital Age
3. 02:42 Using Learning to Teach and Create Content
4. 04:02 Making the Text Yours: Annotating Books
5. 05:20 Annotating Fiction vs Nonfiction
6. 06:32 Alternatives to Annotating: Using a Notebook
7. 07:56 Deep Engagement and Reviewing Annotations
8. 09:16 Summarizing and Reflecting on Passages
9. 12:10 Teaching as a Powerful Learning Tool
10. 13:22 Final Tips and Encouragement

Answers

## Questions about this video

What is the main problem with how we consume information today?

The main problem is information overload caused by bite-sized content from the internet and social media, which leads to passive consumption and poor retention.

How does Rachelle suggest improving memory retention when reading or watching videos?

She suggests actively engaging with the material by annotating, taking notes, and making the content personally meaningful to move it from short-term memory to long-term learning.

Can these techniques be applied to media other than books?

Yes, the methods can be adapted for YouTube videos, podcasts, and other formats by actively interacting with the content and integrating it into daily life.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

Have you ever finished a book or closed a YouTube video and realized you can't remember anything you just consumed?

00:06

Speaker A

You're reading all this stuff, watching all these videos, and you feel like you're learning, but none of it actually sticks. I am definitely this guy sometimes, tearing through book after book, watching dozens of videos, thinking that consuming more content

00:18

Speaker A

will somehow make me smarter or more productive. But I got so fed up with being so overwhelmed that I took matters into my own hands and created a system that completely changed the way I learn.

00:29

Speaker A

In this video, we're going to go through that three-step method, reduce our information overwhelm, and start to actually remember what we read, watch, and listen to. The real problem with how we consume information today is not actually that the information itself

00:44

Speaker A

changed. It's that the content ecosystem is changing the way we interact with that information. So specifically, information is being given to us all the time now via the internet, social media, stuff like that in way smaller bite-sized pieces than ever, ever

00:58

Speaker A

before. This is leading to information overload, which is a real well-documented concept that stops us from actually being able to process the information we're consuming. Whether that is something like an essay or a piece of fiction or a video that we're

01:12

Speaker A

watching or a podcast that we're listening to, we are being passive consumers because all of this information is a little bit too much for us to handle. But the thing is with information overload, we don't even notice that we're being passive

01:25

Speaker A

consumers. We actually do really think that we're learning. Like how often have you just been scrolling on TikTok and you're like, "Oh, that's a cool fact.

01:32

Speaker A

That's a cool fact. I'll integrate that later. I'll remember that later." And then an hour goes by and you have literally no idea what your brain has been doing. In the current content ecosystem that we have, we are stuck in

01:42

Speaker A

this illusion that true learning is happening just because we can observe the information flowing through our brain. But what's actually happening is like it's like we're filling up a cup with water and watching it overflow but never actually drinking anything. So

01:55

Speaker A

we're making this attempt to hydrate but remaining dehydrated just because we can't turn off the tap. So, our goal then becomes to not just consume information, but also to engage with it.

02:06

Speaker A

We want to move it past short-term memory and actually learn how to integrate it into our daily lives. This includes things like teaching, making content about it, writing essays, a whole host of stuff. And I'll talk more about how exactly to integrate it into

02:18

Speaker A

your life later, but as we go through this video, start thinking about the avenues or ways that would feel most natural to you to incorporate and use the information that you read. So, for example, for me, I obviously have this

02:29

Speaker A

YouTube channel. And lately, as I've been getting back into writing, I'm keeping a section in my newsletter called What I'm Working On, which I want to incorporate some key learnings from whatever I'm reading into. So, I essentially get a little mini essay

02:42

Speaker A

prompt every couple of weeks, and I get a chance to use the information I'm thinking about and then immediately use it in context and explain it to other people. If you want to see what I mean, hit the description box below or scan

02:53

Speaker A

the QR code on screen to sign up for the newsletter. But for now, all you're going to need is something to read, a notebook to write in, and a writing utensil, pencil, pen, whatever it is, up to you. Let's get started. So, for the

03:05

Speaker A

purpose of this video, I am going to demonstrate how to engage deeply with what you're learning using physical books, but you can also definitely do these techniques with e-readers, with YouTube videos, with podcasts. And I completely intend and recommend that you

03:18

Speaker A

do do these techniques with those kinds of things. So, we're going to talk about how to adapt the process I'm going to share with you using those other methods like YouTube videos, podcasts, etc. uh towards the end of the video, but follow

03:30

Speaker A

me here with the books example because it's going to be the most familiar to most of us. So, the first step is to turn reading from a passive activity into an active conversation. I'm going to demonstrate this using How to Read a

03:42

Speaker A

Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doran. You've probably seen this book all over the sort of like intellectual readers space on YouTube.

03:50

Speaker A

It's a very popular book about how to read and if you are a reader or if you're trying to get back into reading, I highly, highly recommend it. My method is a little bit different than uh Adler and Van Doran's method, but it does start

04:02

Speaker A

in the same general place, which is to make the text yours. Now, making the book yours does involve annotating. I like to annotate with a pencil, but if you can't or won't annotate in your books, I'll talk about how to do the

04:16

Speaker A

same thing in a second. So when I am annotating, I am looking for important passages that I like. I'm starring things that I find interesting. I'm mapping out arguments as I go. I'm arguing with the author or I'm

04:31

Speaker A

commenting that I like what the author is saying. I'm noting important terms I think I'll want to research later. And I am doing all of this lightning fast.

04:39

Speaker A

Like truly, I'm just devouring the book. And as I go through, I'm like, "Oh yeah, heck yeah. Star there, argument there." Occasionally, I will pause a little bit to write a more um like a a bit of a

04:51

Speaker A

longer passage or a question where I have them, but really this process is going super, super fast because you just want to get through whatever you're consuming, know the shape of it, and then you can go back later and pull out

05:03

Speaker A

the important threads to do some deeper learning. So, the first time you read something or you watch something or listen to something, just go through it all and note things as it feels natural to note them. Obviously, this is a

05:13

Speaker A

non-fiction book. It's more of a how-to book. So, the things I was doing in this are a little bit different than what I would do in say a work of fiction.

05:20

Speaker A

Dracula is one of my favorite books ever. I reread it every couple of years.

05:24

Speaker A

It's so spooky and I just really like it. So, in this latest reread that I did last Halloween, I was marking things up like crazy. So, I was underlining passages that I really liked. I was asking questions like, "Oh, is this what

05:38

Speaker A

they're doing here? I like this text." I was noting character details that are implicit in the text, not explicit in the text. And part of reading for me is also studying how people write. So this is as much of an educational experience

05:53

Speaker A

for me as it is an exercise in pleasure. So I'm pulling out themes like love and friendship. I'm also noting plot things that make me go like, "Oh my god, exclamation point, exclamation point." Like in this, the character Mina is sort

06:06

Speaker A

of like kept in the dark about something and I was like, "Oh my god, she has no idea." But I'm also noting things like, "Oh, he's doing a chapter break in the middle of a diary entry. That's so

06:15

Speaker A

interesting. Why is he doing that? Can I do this myself when I write my own epistolary fiction?" Stuff like that.

06:20

Speaker A

And this text is littered with those kinds of notes in addition to things like, "Oh my god, Dracula has shown up." Like, whoa. So, you can do this technique, like I said, with anything, even if it's most applicable to things

06:32

Speaker A

like educational books or videos or podcasts. But fiction works, too, especially if you are the type of person who will actually get a lot of learning out of reading fiction. Now, if you can't or won't write in your book or if

06:45

Speaker A

you're using a library book or like a textbook that you borrowed from a friend, I also like to read with a notebook beside me. So, what I will do is I will jot down important page numbers from the book and I'll come in

06:57

Speaker A

here and I'll write, oh, okay, on page 242 there's a formula for um what is this a for

07:08

Speaker A

And by writing down a page number and an annotation in a separate book, I'm still engaging critically with the text and with what the author is arguing, but I'm not actually writing in the book. And when we have these annotations or bullet

07:19

Speaker A

points finished, we can go through them and extract the information we actually want to remember. And we're going to do that using our notebook. Handwriting, as you are no doubt aware of by now, slows down the mind and forces it to think

07:32

Speaker A

about what it is writing. So it creates this mindbody connection. you take in the information and you output the physical strokes of your pen, feeling the tooth of the paper, the speed of your writing. Typing just removes a ton

07:45

Speaker A

of these elements. So, I do recommend you do this with a notebook. And when you're done with a particular book, or in this case, we're going to use Ursula Ka's The Carrier Bag, a Theory of Fiction essay. You're going to go back

07:56

Speaker A

and look through your annotations. Some of these annotations are just going to be fluff, which is totally fine. Their purpose was to help you engage with the text, and now they're done. So that's okay. Like this one says, this one says

08:08

Speaker A

Kubric is trembling. Like I don't need to write that down, but it was just me engaging with what she was saying. So during this process, you're going to flip through the writing and you're going to find the most important pieces

08:18

Speaker A

that you underlined, the things that really made you go like, "Oh my god, holy crap." And we are going to pull them out and do three things with them.

08:26

Speaker A

So for example, I'm going to take this passage that I uh underlined and also highlighted with a star, which means I really enjoyed it. and I'm going to go ahead and write it out. So, you're going to copy down the exact quote or passage

08:38

Speaker A

that struck you. I know it seems tedious to copy everything exactly as it is in the text by hand, but commonplace books have been used this way for thousands of years. And there is a reason. Copying text or quotes or passages directly

08:54

Speaker A

helps you assume the role of the author, understand their arguments and the flow of their language, and is actually going to help cement what they are saying in your brain better. But we're not going to stop here. Once you have copied the

09:05

Speaker A

text exactly, then you're going to write out what the author is saying in your own words. You can use bullets, paragraphs, whatever works for you. Just make sure it is in your own words. Okay?

09:16

Speaker A

So, I'm going to do that with this passage right now. Okay? So, I've written out what the passage means in my own words. You can see that I'm definitely not copying it directly. I even tried to use as few words as

09:27

Speaker A

possible that she uses here. So, for example, the word humanity is not mentioned in my passage because I wanted to find a way to describe what humanity was differently. Instead, I wrote what life is about, the lessons and

09:40

Speaker A

interactions that make us human. That is sort of how I'm defining humanity, right? Um, so I'm writing it out in my own words. I'm defining things differently. I'm not trying to mirror her syntax. I'm just trying to write

09:50

Speaker A

myself what I think this passage means. And this paraphrasing is super critical to learning more deeply. So you write it out so that you understand the argument and that you understand what the author is saying. And then you prove that you

10:02

Speaker A

understand what the author is saying by translating that and paraphrasing that into your own words, thus cementing it into your brain. When you hear yourself explain something or watch yourself write something down, that then becomes your knowledge. Writing is thinking.

10:18

Speaker A

Keep that in mind. As an additional step, you can also write down what you think of the passage and the author's argument. So here we just wrote the author's passage. Here we rephrased it into our own words. And down at the

10:29

Speaker A

bottom, or maybe you need a whole other page to argue and critique, you can write down what you think. Is anything missing? Are there any other places in the text where they provide answers?

10:39

Speaker A

What do you like about the passage and what they're saying? This is going to be just free journaling, so do whatever you want on the page. For the demonstration purposes of this video, cuz it's getting kind of long already, I'm just going to

10:49

Speaker A

write I agree. Uh I'll also write, "This passage moved me." Because it really did. I really do think this is a quite a good little essay and it did really move me as a woman and a writer of fiction.

11:01

Speaker A

So again, this can be as long or as short as you want. It can be as critical or as accepting as you want. Just really how you actually felt about the passage.

11:12

Speaker A

I also might write cuz I think there's some other places she talks about this in the book. Yeah, on the previous page, so page 30, page 30, more about womanhood. So yeah, write about what you think. Leave yourself little breadcrumbs

11:28

Speaker A

for where you can find more information in the text and then rinse and repeat, baby. All right, the last step and the step that most people skip is to integrate what you learn into your real life. Information that stays in your

11:41

Speaker A

head or in your notebook is just trivia. Information that changes how you behave becomes wisdom. So whenever I read or learn something value, I try to apply it in one of four ways. I try to teach it to someone else, implement it as a

11:54

Speaker A

self-improvement experiment, create content about it, or document it where I will actually use it. So, I'm going to use an example from David Allen's Getting Things Done here, which is an anti-procrastination project planning ritual that I actually have used and has actually saved my life

12:10

Speaker A

before. Um, so the first option, by the way, peep the annotations here. Girl is using her own methods. Okay, the first option you have is to teach what you learn, right? Teaching is super incredibly powerful because it forces

12:24

Speaker A

you to organize the information, identify gaps in your understanding, and then regurgitate it to somebody else.

12:31

Speaker A

So, you don't need to be a teacher to explain it like to students or whatever.

12:36

Speaker A

You can just have a conversation with your partner about it or create a totally private PowerPoint presentation about it or even just practice explaining it out loud to yourself. The first thing is what I like to do, explaining it to my partner. We often

12:48

Speaker A

have conversations about what we're learning or what we're thinking about during the day. And so having that as a backboard at which I can sort of throw whatever I've been learning allows me to integrate teaching into my everyday

12:59

Speaker A

life. So when I learned this, I immediately turned around and explained it to my partner. I want to hop in here and circle back to something I mentioned a few weeks ago. Teachable, today's sponsor. The hardest part of making

13:10

Speaker A

content online is building something that's actually sustainable. The best creators aren't just sharing their knowledge once. They're building systems that keep helping people even when they're not actively working. One thing I've learned on YouTube is that a huge

13:22

Speaker A

part of delivering knowledge to lots of people is packaging the same content in multiple ways. We all learn differently, and Teachable lets you market the same expertise in all different kinds of formats. Digital downloads, coaching sessions, full-blown courses, you name

13:35

Speaker A

it. The platform has these engagement tools I didn't even know existed. things like drip content scheduling to release lessons on a schedule and completion certificates that motivate people to finish what they start. So you're not just info dumping and hoping for the

13:48

Speaker A

best. Plus, Teachable handles all the back-end business stuff from student management to affiliate programs so you can focus on creating content that transforms people's lives. I've teamed up with Teachable to give you an exclusive 30-day extended free trial

14:02

Speaker A

just for my community. If this sounds up your alley, hit the link in the description and start creating something that pays off. Thanks again to Teachable for sponsoring. Now, let's get back to the video. The next way you can

14:12

Speaker A

integrate information into your life is implementation. So, after reading about the exercise that I just showed you, I actually applied it. I did actually apply it. This is an entry of me doing the sort of three-step project planning/

14:25

Speaker A

anti-procrastination ritual that he talks about in the book. I applied the exercise to a real problem that I was having, a real place where I was stuck, and it actually did help me get unstuck.

14:36

Speaker A

And the important part of doing this is that when you create a sort of self-improvement experiment, right? You are testing the things you learn in your real life. Sometimes you're going to find that things work really well for

14:46

Speaker A

your brain, like this works super well for me, but other stuff you're going to find that you just cannot click with for whatever reason. But you'll only know that if you try them. So, I really recommend trying what you learn as soon

14:59

Speaker A

as you can. The third method I recommend for integrating it into your real life is creating content. Now, I know I just said that the content ecosystem that we live in is crazy and is ruining our brains and all of that kind of stuff,

15:11

Speaker A

but as a self-practice, giving yourself an avenue, whether that's YouTube or Substack or a newsletter like I mentioned above or even just a an essay that you write and share with a friend, even if there's no way to post it, try

15:25

Speaker A

to create some discrete piece of content around it. Think about it like the book reports you used to write in school or essays you used to write in school where that is a piece of content, right?

15:35

Speaker A

That's a thing that you are creating. Maybe you write an article about it for your blog, something like that. Because then you're going to be going back through the information, figuring out how you want to explain it, referencing

15:44

Speaker A

your actual experience, talking about how that worked, how it didn't work, and essentially giving your opinion on what you read. Difference between teaching and giving an opinion. teaching is going to be a little bit more straightforward about the practical pieces of whatever

15:58

Speaker A

you learned. Content creation can be a little more free form. It can be a little more whatever you want it to be, whether again that's essay writing or YouTube videos. For me, I actually did make a YouTube video about the

16:08

Speaker A

procrastination method I talk about in uh in this book and I will leave it linked up in the cards if you want to see what final form that sort of took for me. Um but yeah, go check it out

16:17

Speaker A

because I actually did do the content on this method. And finally, what you want to do is you want to document the learnings somewhere you will use them.

16:27

Speaker A

So you don't want to just document it in a notebook, for example, although a notebook can be really helpful. And like I said, writing things out is super useful for your brain, but the best way to do it is to actually put the

16:39

Speaker A

information where you're going to use it. So for example, that might be like meal cheat sheets on the fridge, or it might be like instructions on how to annotate, like on a bookmark that you keep in your books. For this particular

16:50

Speaker A

example, the procrastination exercise, I actually have a sticky note that lives in the front of my planner, uh, that has the three steps of the procrastination exercise. So that anytime I'm like going through my day, going through my life

17:02

Speaker A

here, I can come back here and reference these steps. And then on the day that I'm experiencing the procrastination or the stress, I can look at this and I can say, "Okay, step one, I got to write out

17:13

Speaker A

what's bugging me. Step two, I got to write out what my success looks like, etc., etc." So, put the information somewhere you will actually use it and watch it change your life. Because the other thing that this does is that it

17:24

Speaker A

removes the friction inherent in having to look up over and over again. This technique in the actual book or even in your notebook, like you're not going to have these things always with you. So, when you segment it out and put the

17:37

Speaker A

useful bits where they are most useful, it just removes all of that friction. Then you can use your information more and then that's great. That's why we're here. Finally, let's talk about making this work across all media. So,

17:49

Speaker A

e-readers will often have a built-in annotation system right in your Kindle or your Nook if a Nook is still around.

17:57

Speaker A

I don't know. I don't really use e-readers, but even the PDF readers on your computer will have some kind of highlighting and noting function. So, I recommend using that because it's pretty easy when you are reading things digitally. For everything else, I want

18:11

Speaker A

you to use this method we talked about when writing in things like library books where you write out the page numbers and then you write out your note or your keyword. For things like YouTube videos or podcasts, I recommend doing

18:24

Speaker A

this method that we talked about earlier when um reading a library book, for example, or something that you cannot mark up because usually you can't mark up a YouTube video or a podcast, right?

18:34

Speaker A

I think there's some software that allows you to make bookmarks in those pieces of media or there are apps you can find that allow you to clip a piece from a podcast or from a YouTube video or something and it will transcribe it

18:47

Speaker A

and it will automatically port it into your Evernote. I'm not super familiar with these pieces of uh apps or software because again I really believe in handwriting out what you want to learn, but those exist and you can definitely

19:00

Speaker A

look them up. But if you're learning from things like YouTube or podcasts, I recommend having a notebook here. And then instead of writing out the page number, you write out the timestamp where something interesting was mentioned. And then you can complete

19:11

Speaker A

steps two and three as needed. Writing quotes verbatim, paraphrasing them, and then using them by incorporating them into your daily life. The key is adapting this principle to any format you're engaging with. You want to actively engage with the text by

19:25

Speaker A

commenting on what the author is saying inside the book itself or in a separate notebook. Then you want to capture what the author is actually saying by hand.

19:35

Speaker A

Figure out how to paraphrase it so that it cements it in your mind. Learn how you actually feel about it and then integrate it into your real life in those ways I mentioned earlier. You can pause videos to ask questions, argue

19:47

Speaker A

with articles in your notes, and always, always, always write down how you might actually use what you're learning because that is going to be the 100% best way to cement what you're learning in your brain forever. And I would be

20:01

Speaker A

remiss if I didn't also say that sometimes this process means consuming less stuff. I mentioned the content ecosystem. It is overwhelming. If you want that information overload to go away, if you want to actually learn deeply, you have to go deep, not wide.

20:17

Speaker A

So, you have to pick your book of fiction that you really want to engage with and read over and over and over again. Or you pick a book with a methodology that you want to learn front to back by heart so that it makes you

20:29

Speaker A

smarter, makes you stronger, makes you whatever. And then you have to incorporate those things. Because if you're just relying on scrolling through 15-second video after 15-second video, I promise you none of that is going to be cemented in your head. Now, you can of

20:42

Speaker A

course adapt what I'm recommending to you here for a Tik Tok video. I don't see why not. But watch yourself scroll a lot less. Watch yourself learn a lot more deeply from that Tik Tok video when you employ some of these methods because

20:55

Speaker A

it really is going to help you engage with what's coming into your ear so that it doesn't just go out the other. When you engage deeply with fewer things, instead of skimming through everything, you're not just retaining the

21:07

Speaker A

information better. You're actually enjoying the process more, too. This three-step system works whether you're reading fiction, diving into personal development books, or even watching educational YouTube videos like this one. The key is choosing to go deeper rather than wider. If you'd like to go

21:22

Speaker A

deeper on this particular topic, I have a newsletter where I talk about stuff like this in a lot more depth. So, click on the link in the description or scan the QR code on the screen. And if you

21:31

Speaker A

don't have a place in your system for content notes, you might want to check out this video about my thinking book where you can learn to make one for yourself. As always, thank you so much for watching, for being subscribed, for

21:42

Speaker A

being awesome. I love you so much and I will see you in the next one. Bye.

Topics: active reading information overload learning techniques annotation note-taking memory retention content consumption study tips Rachelle in theory How to Read a Book

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