People often ask me how I do my book notes. I'm not really sure how to explain it, since it seems straightforward: read a book, take notes? Maybe these tips can help, though.

2014-05-16 How to draw a visual summary of a book #drawing

Reading the table of contents helps me figure out the structure of a book. Then I just go through it section by section, writing down things that other people might find useful or that I'd like to remember. It helps that I speed-read and that I've read a lot of books – I can skip large chunks if I prefer another book's explanation of that topic.

I like drawing my book notes digitally because I can use colours that match the book and because I can erase or move things around on the computer, but drawing on paper is okay too.

I like thinking about how I can improve my workflow. The next step for me is probably to get better at picking books that I care enough about to draw (or conversely, to draw books anyway, because practice is good). I could also use it to practise colour and imagery, since my notes tend to be mostly text. =)

Here are some more notes on how I read books:

• How I read books and do visual book reviews
• How to Read a Book
• My book workflow

I might be able to explain more if people have specific questions. =)

I'd love to see more visual book notes. They're a great way to condense a book's key points for your personal review and for sharing with others. Here are some other people who have shared their visual book notes:

• Todd Clarke: http://getlit.me/visual-notes/
• Dave Bolton: http://davidbolton.net/blog/2013/01/04/sketchnoting-the-effective-executive/
• Sunni Brown: http://sunnibrown.com/2010/05/the-war-of-art-visual-book-summary

Enjoy!