In the self-help or productivity community, there is often a focus on learning faster. For books, this leads to books summaries. For more general self-improvement, it includes summaries like “8 Ways to Do X”.
This includes video summaries, summary articles, “top X” lists (e.g. top 10 lessons from…). Sometimes, these even compound on each other. For example, a YouTube video summary could have a top comment that summarizes the main points of the video.
These summaries supposedly save time. However, I’ve found that learning this way doesn’t really lead to action and actual improvement.
The reason for this is summaries, by nature, are short. This means that they have to sacrifice depth and comprehensiveness. This lack of depth means they don’t translate into deeper understanding, knowledge, and action.
Also, summary lists can give a false perception of learning. This is because they often feature a clear number of things that you have “learned”. In reality, these are things you’ve only “heard of”. Finally, because of the shallow nature of summaries, they are easier to consume without focus. For example, when you are scrolling social media before bed. Whereas, if you’re reading a book, you have to have focus and think about the material.
So, What are Summaries Good For?
Summaries can still be useful in two ways: as a supplement, and as an introduction.
- Supplement. You can use them after reading the source material, to recap ideas and add to your notes. For example, you read a book, and you later watch the top YouTube videos summaries about that book. This can help you round out your understanding. Or, the summaries might bring up points that you didn’t emphasize originally.
- Introduction. You can use them to quickly get a list of many relevant topics, ideas, and keywords of the book. Then, you can do more in-depth research into each topic.