How to process notes in Obsidian // Readwise Official Obsidian plugin

A practical workflow for turning scattered highlights into usable knowledge is built around Readwise as a “middleware” layer between raw reading and an Obsidian vault. Instead of trying to capture everything at the moment of consumption—or expecting one pass through a source to stick forever—the system funnels Kindle highlights, PDF notes, and even saved tweets into Obsidian, then relies on scheduled processing to convert those fragments into original notes.

The process starts with installing the Readwise Official Obsidian plugin. In Obsidian, users enable Community plugins, search for “Readwise,” and install the “Official Readwise to Obsidian integration.” After connecting the plugin to a Readwise account, the setup page becomes the control center: exports can be formatted as Markdown, and sources like books, articles, tweets, and podcasts can be routed into separate folders to reduce naming collisions. A key customization is how imported items are tagged—such as using a “Te Verzetteln” (TVZ) inbox tag to mark material that still needs processing. The plugin also supports sync behavior, including an “Initiate Sync” action and a re-sync frequency setting; the workflow recommends switching from manual to hourly so new highlights don’t sit idle.

Once configured, the system works across devices. Kindle e-readers and the Kindle app can sync highlights and notes automatically, which then land in Obsidian as appended highlights in the relevant Markdown files. The same pipeline handles social saving: a tweet can be shared via “Send as a private message” to Readwise, where it appears within minutes, and then pulled into Obsidian via a manual sync if needed. In Obsidian, the result is searchable, linked material—sometimes as highlighted text, sometimes as a bookmarked tweet—complete with a link back to the original source.

The real value arrives after ingestion. Each day at 9:00 pm, the workflow reviews items tagged with TVZ (or another chosen tag) and extracts ideas from the highlighted passages. For a fiction book like “Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro, that means creating a separate note outside the Readwise folder that summarizes themes (hope, loneliness, superstition) and points to supporting scenes—shifting from quotes to interpretation. For an academic-style work about Kubedim (a proxy enabling control theory to improve microservices performance), the process similarly moves from highlighted sections to a new “in my words” page. Direct author quotes can be kept in a separate note to preserve authorship boundaries, while additional concepts mentioned by the author—like the circuit breaker pattern—become new linked pages that connect to broader areas such as Site Reliability Engineering.

There’s no strict stopping rule. The workflow acknowledges an endless expansion risk: Kubedim leads to circuit breakers, which can lead to dimming/brownout, and so on. Instead of chasing a finish line, it recommends going as deep as feels relevant at the time, trusting that notes remain in the vault for later refinement.

Cost is straightforward: the Obsidian plugin is free, while Readwise is paid. Readwise Light costs $4.49/month and Readwise costs $7.99/month, with the higher tier adding features like space repetition for highlights. A free trial is available, and a referral link can extend trial time.