Version one: give me a plan first
A little before midnight the night before, I sent Claude my first message. I wanted a PDF reading tool just for me that opens in the browser and needs no login. I listed what version one should do: highlighting, attaching a thought to a sentence, dropping a free note anywhere on the page, saving automatically, and exporting everything with one click. At the end I added: don't write any code yet, give me a plan first.
Claude came back with a plan and seven questions. Less than half an hour after I answered them, version one worked.
During the day I moved my notes folder into Google Drive. I also made exports go to a folder I choose, and put together a zip file I could send to other people, with a short how-to guide.
In the afternoon I asked a question: when I export, could AI organize my notes automatically? That was the first time I connected AI to the tool. I got a Claude API key and learned that the models differ a lot in price, and the cheapest one is plenty for tidying up notes.
By evening there was a bookshelf, "Ask AI", a quiz mode and topic summaries. I also set up a reading knowledge base in Notion along the way.
What I figured out today: I don't care about remembering what I read. I care about absorbing it into my own knowledge and slowly building a knowledge system of my own.
Versions today: v0.1 first version · v0.2 choose where exports go, share with others · v0.3 export + AI digest · v0.4 bookshelf, Ask AI, quiz, topic summaries