I may be in a minority among book worms, but I don’t generally write directly in my books. For some reads, I don’t take notes at all, but notes are almost essential if I’m going to review the book. I’ve tried various systems for taking notes, paper and pen, a text file on the computer, but the best way I’ve found for taking notes is using sticky notes.

In general, I don’t like writing in my books for a few reasons. I find it distracting to read notes in the books, whether the notes are mine or, worse, someone else’s. Perhaps it is an indication that my reading is too easily interrupted as also seen in that I don’t like it when a snippet of the book is stuffed in a box, breaking up the flow of the text, as if the person responsible doubts my ability to read it in the paragraph.

Another reason I don’t want my notes in the text is because I want to be able to read what is there without focusing on what I thought was important earlier. If I’ve highlighted a portion, I’m more likely to skim the portions I didn’t highlight to get to the portion I thought was important to mark at an earlier reading, making it easier to miss little gems again.

Many of the books I read are not my own, and I want to be able to have the same experience reading a book from the library as a book from my own shelves. Owning a book does not mean I will be a book’s final owner or its final reader, so I don’t want to harm future reader’s experiences with my notes.

Sticky notes have some obvious advantages. They are easy to remove, so after I’m done I can take the notes out, sticking them in a notebook if I want to preserve them for some reason. Proximity to the text to which the note refers speeds up the process of finding and checking quotations for a review.

I do make a few exceptions for notes involving research that I know I will want if I read the book again. For example, I make translation notes if I need to look up something in a foreign language or if someone else has done the looking and can clarify something that was translated to English. I’ve also been known to jot down definitions in the margin for English words that I don’t use or that have an obsolete usage which I don’t want to comb through my OED to find again.

Some day, I might switch to an e-reader of some sort that allows me to take notes, hide them, search them, and store them, but for now sticky notes get the job done.

Have you considered my article "Five Choices to Manage Your Reading?"

This post was partially inspired by the article "How I Read a Book" posted today by Tim Challies.