I happened to read Simple Guide to Sketchnoting and subsequently felt that the barrier to creating sketchnotes was not as high as I had imagined. Going by my past experiences, I knew that my initial attempt is going to look crude. Nevertheless, I went ahead and did a sketchnote of each of the chapters of the book. The upside of going ahead and getting a sketchnote out was

• Got to experiment with various layouts that one can use while sketchnoting
• Got to experiment with text empathy
• Got me started in to doodling / drawing that I don’t even recollect my past memory where I had doodled something.
• Of course, the content of the book is far more permanent this time around as I had to thin through all the components of sketchnote

The following are the sketchnotes of all the chapters of the book, Hidden Potential . I had read this book in 2023 and had written a summary mostly words and few mind maps. This attempt is to summarize only via sketchnotes

Sketchnotes

Prologue

Chapter-1: Creatures of Discomfort

Chapter-2: Human Sponges

Chapter-3: The Imperfectionists

Chapter-4: Transforming the Grind

Chapter-5: Getting Unstuck

Chapter-6: Defying Gravity

Chapter-7: Every Child Gets Ahead

Chapter-8: Mining for Gold

Chapter-9: Diamonds in the Rough

Takeaway

Creating a Sketchnote summary of the book took more time than reading the book. Is it worth the effort ? May be if you want to remember the points in the book rather than checking it off from a to-be-read list of books. The very fact that you are trying to not only REPRESENT the main ideas of the book visually as well as verbally will make the ideas of the book more memorable. At least that’s my experience from sketchnoting. This does take time though. So, choosing wisely the book that one wants to do a sketchnote summary becomes critical.