The Top 3 Lessons From Summarizing Over 400 Non-Fiction Books

A few years ago I was thinking about starting writing online and had some apprehension, as all beginners usually do.

I emailed one of my favorite writers asking for advice, not knowing whether he’d reply. Not long afterward, I saw a message from him in my inbox. His advice was only two words:

“Just begin.”

Eight months later I’d published about 100 articles on Medium and was earning a few hundred a month from my writing. I was learning and growing and connecting with others and loving every minute of it.

What happened next blew my mind.

That same writer emailed me asking if I wanted to write for him. I excitedly accepted and began writing non-fiction book summaries on fourminutebooks.com.

Nearly two years after that I’d published over 400 summaries on the site and learned thousands of lessons from it all. Here are just 3 of the most impactful ones to me.

1. Most books only have one big takeaway, the majority of it is stories to help you understand how to do it and why you should

This is a lesson for when you’re reading non-fiction books. Most of them aren’t worth your time because you can get the main points in just four minutes rather than spending hours reading.