A few days ago, I posted on this subreddit about annotation, asking why people do it how they do it. My interest was piqued after seeing someone doing annotations on their books while browsing in a bookshop, posted here, saw other's opinions and words.
First of all, my annotation method was using two different highlighters, one that I would use on quotes or ideas, and another that I used for new ideas or sentences that I liked the most. And used a pencil to write some notes, share my thoughts, or write the summary, or what I thought it meant.
The first and most noticeable difference was definitely my attention span; for the last year or so, I have been struggling with my attention span, unable to finish books in a week that I used to finish in days. Annotating helped me with this. I finished Atomic Habits in two days, while doing my Uni classes and whatnot, being able to share my thoughts and mark things helped me stay focused for longer; it made reading fun again.
To add to that, if you have the same brain as me, it ain't smart nor is it able to keep focus for much long anymore, but the act of writing the jumble mess on my head on the book and trying to relate the theme with my life event or state helped, it made reading even better, I was able to blurt out my thoughts which made my head a lot clear than before.
The highlighting part might seem like a aesthetic thing, which it is no doubt but it has its merit like there are some quotes that I really liked, it is far easier to find them to write a review or to share it, also using two different color of higlighter made it less about beautiful and more about what i thought, what was important what resonated with me and what felt good.
Aight, that's all I had to say, will I do it with my literature books? Nope, too precious to me XD But doing it on the self-help books, which I find a slog and lower eng of paperbacks, can be fun and keep me occupied for the time being.
by Worth-Gene