Readwise + Logseq Tutorial: Importing Book Notes into my Second Brain

Readwise can act as a bridge between Kindle highlights and Logseq, but the workflow only feels “second-brain” useful when the export is formatted for how someone actually wants to read and synthesize—especially when highlights need to stay tied to their original page context. The core setup here routes Kindle annotations into Logseq with custom formatting and page properties, so each imported quote can be quickly scanned, filtered, and reopened in the Kindle desktop app like paging through a book.

The tutorial begins by placing note-taking inside a broader system: capture, organize, retrieval, and output. Within that framework, the creator narrows focus to capture/organize—specifically how Kindle highlights become Logseq entries. The motivation is practical. After earlier attempts to import highlights via spreadsheets (a clunky Google Sheets workflow), the process broke down once Kindle note-taking became central. Paying for Readwise as a service is framed as the simplest way to keep the pipeline working across tools.

A key design choice is what gets imported. The workflow connects Readwise to Kindle and other sources, but the export is intentionally kept “books only” to avoid clutter in Logseq. Readwise’s own Reader app is avoided because it imports everything as separate pages, which doesn’t match the preferred Logseq workflow. Instead, Readwise highlights are treated less like memorization prompts and more like a navigable archive—something to flip through when synthesizing ideas.

On the Readwise side, the export configuration to Logseq is where the real leverage appears. Two settings are called out as especially important: including highlight location and using custom formatting. Highlight location adds clutter to the imported text, but it enables a click-through effect—opening the Kindle PC app at the highlight’s original context, approximating the experience of flipping through a physical book. Custom formatting also structures the imported content so Logseq can display author quotes distinctly from personal notes.

In Logseq, the import lands with page properties and a consistent structure: metadata fields support filtering (including a “Source readwise import” reference), and a dedicated highlights header separates passages. The Readwise Logseq plugin then syncs on demand rather than automatically, with options like resyncing deleted pages enabled and automatic resync disabled to prevent accidental overwrites during writing.

Once synced, retrieval relies on properties and filters. The example uses the book “A System for Writing” (by Bob Doto, known as “the High Pony”) and demonstrates finding imported content via Source and book-related properties. Imported passages are visually distinguished (gray blocks for author text), making it easier to separate what belongs to the author from what the reader adds. The workflow also supports adding personal observation notes and tagging them for later processing, including a discussion of how automated tagging could be configured but was previously abandoned due to lack of follow-through.

Overall, the tutorial’s message is less about Readwise’s features and more about making the export format match the way someone wants to retrieve and synthesize ideas—turning highlights into an organized, filterable, context-preserving knowledge base inside Logseq.