Connecting the dots: cross-referencing Steinbeck's diary with Atomic Habits using NotebookLM

✍️ Inspiration is a daughter of memory; cross-referencing is hard work; NotebookLM is my new staff librarian

In Greek mythology, the Muses, goddesses of inspiration, were daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. It makes sense: creation is always synthesis.

When I write, I like to think that my posts are original, but in fact they always build upon what I saw and heard and read before. Sometimes it's unconscious, often it's not. I like connecting the dots between my own experience and classic texts.

In Writing, inspiration and Steinbeck's hangover, I wrote about consistency in writing (write every week) and connected this with diary entries of the great American author Steinbeck. (I have no modesty or sense of proportion.)

The labour of cross-referencing

Cross-referencing between sources is a laborious task. Computers help, but only so much: I may have a vague sense that a lot of the ideas covered in the Steinbeck diary were also expressed in the classic self-help book “Atomic Habits”, but how do I actually find these connections?

The only way is to read the book (or re-read it), with a highlighter in hand and take note of the connections. At least, that used to be the case. Enter LLMs.

NotebookLM

NotebookLM, a free research tool from Google, is all about analysing specific documents. Unlike popular assistant chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, which base their responses on the underlying language model, NotebookLM grounds the results in the content we upload into the tool.

Let's see this in practice, and use the tool to find the common ideas between Steinbeck's diary and Atomic Habits.

First, we upload an article from the web containing quotes from the Steinbeck diary:

It's as simple as entering the URL: the content is automatically extracted:

Cross-reference

It's nice to be able to summarize and make queries about a specific article. But what we want to do is cross-reference two sources. So let's also upload excerpts from Atomic Habits into the same notebook:

After uploading the PDF, we're ready to give it a try.

What ideas from the Atomic Habits book resonate with specific observations made by Steinbeck?

The results are excellent. Here are parts of the tool response, edited for brevity but otherwise not tampered with. The response maps the main ideas from Atomic Habits to entries in Steinbeck's diary:

Focus on Systems, Not Goals: In Atomic Habits the author emphasizes the importance of systems over goals, stating that "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." This resonates with Steinbeck's journaling practice, which he used as a system to ensure consistent progress

The 2-Minute Rule: Clear breaking down daunting tasks into smaller, more manageable ones that can be done in two minutes or less. Steinbeck employed a similar strategy by focusing on daily word counts instead of the enormity of completing an entire novel.

Accountability: Clear discusses the value of accountability partners and using a "habit contract" to enhance commitment. Steinbeck's diary served as a form of accountability partner, offering a space for self-reflection and a record of his progress, or lack thereof.

The best part? The tool annotates the main claims with references linking back to the sources we uploaded!

Conclusion

Like all LLM-based tools, NotebookLM does't replace the human writer. I wouldn't want to publish verbatim anything produced by the tool. But it is an invaluable help for anyone who writes based on sources: it automates connecting the dots between different ideas and finding references in the source material!

In other news

• 🤖 Google demoes Gemini Live. Can't wait to try it!

Postcard from a Parisian wine shop

It's August in Paris and almost everyone is gone. Most of the shops in my neighborhood are shut, some without even an explanation note. (What is there to explain? It's closed, c’est la vie, bonnes vacances!)

I was very happy to find a grand total of one wine shop open in the neighborhood and acquire a red Burgundy to celebrate the weekend:).

Take care 💫,
– Przemek