The BEST Way to Summarize Books with ChatGPT

If you're new here, hi! My name is Thiago Forte, and I'm the author of "Building a Second Brain," which is all about how to maximize the value you get from all the content and information you consume every day. In this article, I'll share what I've learned about how to effectively use ChatGPT to summarize books. Then I'll take you step-by-step through a real example of creating a book summary so you can do it yourself.

The Challenge of Information Retention

I used to read 50 books a year, speeding through them like my life depended on it, until one day I realized none of this was sticking. I was reading thousands of words every month, but they were just passing in one ear and out the other. I don't know about you, but I want my reading to actually make a difference in my life. So, a few years ago, I decided to start reading far fewer books and summarizing them in my own words so that knowledge really sunk in. These summaries are like building blocks that I've been able to incorporate into my work or share with others to their benefit. Instead of this vague feeling that I'm forgetting everything I learn, I can see this tangible collection of book summaries as proof of what I've learned.

The Time-Consuming Nature of Writing Summaries

Writing book summaries is extremely time-consuming. It's hard enough to find the time to read a book in the first place, but then setting aside additional hours to summarize it? When I became a parent a few years ago, I suddenly had zero time for that. When ChatGPT came out, I realized this could be a way to create my book summaries in a fraction of the time. The question is, can we get high-quality book summaries from ChatGPT?

Initial Attempts and Their Shortcomings

At first, I tried simply asking ChatGPT to write a summary on its own, but even after trying this multiple times, I found that these summaries are just not good. They're too brief, superficial, cliché, and fail to capture the most unusual, insightful, important ideas from the book. The problem, I discovered, is that ChatGPT doesn't have direct access to the text of the book itself; it’s relying on summaries already written by others, and a summary of a summary is never good.

The Solution: A Workflow for Better Summaries

Luckily, I do have access to the full text and highlights from ebooks as I read, using a service called Readwise. All my highlights from over 200 books are automatically saved right here in my note app. I found that if I feed my highlights—which include all the points I found most surprising, resonant, and thought-provoking—into ChatGPT, it produces a far better summary.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Read the Ebook and Export Highlights

I decided to read "Where Good Ideas Come From" by Steven Johnson in the Kindle app on my iPad. As I read, I highlighted the best passages, all of which were automatically saved to my digital notes using Readwise.

Step 2: Bold the Most Important Points

Most of the time, the highlights I save from a book are far too extensive. For example, I had 8,000 words from just this one book alone, which is about double what ChatGPT allows. I usually do a first pass selecting only the most important parts using my Progressive Summarization technique.

Step 3: Turn Highlights into an Outline

Creating an outline with the major ideas and supporting points beneath them tells ChatGPT which ideas to emphasize. I double-click the note and change the size of the window to cover the left half of the screen. Then I create a new note for the right side of the screen. By copying and pasting my bolded passages, I create an organized structure.

Step 4: Dump the Outline into ChatGPT

I copy the entire outline and paste it into ChatGPT with a specific prompt that asks the AI to incorporate my provided material into other relevant information it finds. This step is surprisingly quick and efficient.

The result is a summary far superior to the one created solely by ChatGPT. It's longer, more detailed, and more specific, with better supporting points and examples. I've saved at least 70-80% of the time it previously took me to summarize books.

Summary

By combining incredible content with the capabilities of artificial intelligence, creating valuable book summaries has become more accessible and efficient. I encourage you to give this method a try and to share your ideas and experiments with us in the comments.

Keyword

ChatGPT
Book Summarization
Progressive Summarization
Readwise
Kindle Highlights
Digital Notes
Efficient Reading
Information Retention

FAQ

Q: Why are ChatGPT's standalone summaries often insufficient? A: ChatGPT doesn't have direct access to the text of the book; it's relying on summaries already written by others. This often results in brief, superficial, and cliché summaries.

Q: How do I get ChatGPT to create better book summaries? A: By providing your own book highlights and selected important points, ChatGPT can produce a far superior summary by integrating this information into its output.

Q: What tools do I need for this summarization process? A: You need access to an ebook platform like Kindle, a highlight-capturing service like Readwise, and a digital note app. Finally, use ChatGPT to synthesize this information.

Q: How much time can I save using this method? A: You can save at least 70-80% of the time it would take to summarize a book manually.

Q: What is Progressive Summarization? A: It's a technique that involves multiple passes over your notes to distill them into the most important points, helping to create structured and concise summaries.