Help Me Remember Part 3

We talked about tools to help us remember back in December of 2023 and again in January of 2024. It’s time we discussed them again. Why? Artificial intelligence has rocketed us forward with new ways to help us remember things. As a matter of fact, there are a LOT of AI-assisted tools available now that we can give things we want to remember. They make it easy to retrieve that information when we need it. I’m only going to discuss one this time and I will try to discuss others in the future.

Google’s Entry

Unsurprisingly, Google has an entry in this market and https://NotebookLM.google.com is it. Like many things from Google, it started out as an experiment but has become very popular. There is a free version that has very generous limits and a paid version that substantially increases those limits. The features are the same in both versions. And it’s my current favorite tool to help me remember things.

How I Use NotebookLM

So what is NotebookLM, and why - and how - do I use it?

As you might infer from its name, you can create notebooks to contain various types of information. A notebook may contain many sources, currently as many as 50 in the free version. A source can be a PDF or a text file, a picture, or an audio file. But that’s not all. It can be a Google Doc or Slide, a website, or a YouTube video. Once you’ve added some sources, you can begin asking your notebook questions. So, you might make a Recipes notebook and put into it your favorite recipes in whatever format you have them - PDFs, pictures, text or even links to online recipes. You could then ask it what ingredients you need for mother’s beef stew and how to prepare it. Or ask it what you could make with what you have in your pantry.

I have all sorts of notebooks. I have a notebook of manuals for the various pieces of hardware I have. I can ask it how to change the hardness setting on my water softener or how to pair a set of earbuds. I have a Health Plan notebook which contains all of the information for the various health plans and coverages that are available. If I want to know if a drug or procedure is covered, I can just ask instead of rummaging around in all of the paper and PDFs I have.

I have a Friend Info notebook that contains various pieces of information I want to remember about my friends and acquaintances. Things like where we met, what foods they like, what allergies they have, birthdays, a list of companies they’ve worked for and so on.

Save Your Memories and Create A Podcast

You could dictate your memories and put the recordings into a Memories notebook. Besides being able to ask it questions, NotebookLM can create a sort of podcast discussing and summarizing what’s in the notebook so you, your siblings, children, or anyone interested could listen to the summary and ask questions of your Memories notebook.

Can A Notebook Be Shared?

Yes, you can share a notebook! Currently you can get a link to an individual notebook and share it with anyone. You can restrict them to only having access to the chat or give them access to the whole notebook. They can’t change anything but they can interact with it. So, you could, in effect, publish your recipes. In fact, I have all of my columns in a notebook and you can access it at https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/8e90fabe-7968-429c-8f17-038f0ca4e134. Give it a try! Go to my notebook in the link above and give it the prompt “What can be used to remember things”.  You should get summaries of all my previous articles about remembering things.

A Different Way of Organizing - The Everything Notebook

Now that I’ve told you about some of the notebooks I have, I also want to share a new approach I’m trying out. I’m terrible at categorizing. Sure, it’s easy to know where to put friend info but over time - and with the creation of multiple notebooks - it can become difficult to remember which notebook contains the information I’m after. So, I’ve created an Everything notebook. Instead of categorizing, I just put it in the Everything notebook. When I want some information, instead of searching for the correct notebook and then asking my question, I just select Everything and ask away. It sounded crazy to me when I first heard of it. I was so used to trying to categorize a piece of information and remembering where I put it that putting all of the things I wanted to remember into one place and trusting that I’d be able to retrieve it again took a leap of faith. So far I haven’t been disappointed. Not once! Granted, as a free user you could run up against the 50 source limit pretty quickly so this approach may not be for you but I like the service so much that I have a paid (Pro) account. I got a year free when I bought a Chromebook Plus but I think I’ll keep it after the free year is over.

Pricing And Plans

For $20/month, you are actually signing up for Google One AI Premium. With that you get 2TB of Google storage which you can share with up to 5 people, Gemini Pro (Google’s AI chatbot), and a few other things. Lots more information about it is available at https://one.google.com/about/google-ai-plans/ but note there is a $19.99/month plan called Google AI Pro and a $249.99/month plan called Google AI Ultra.

That’s all for this time

I hope you’ll give NotebookLM a try and see if it can help you like it’s helped me. Don't hesitate to write to me if you have questions!

As always, my intent is to help you understand the basics and equip you to search for more detailed information.

Please feel free to email me with questions, comments, suggestions, requests for future columns, to sign up for my newsletter, or whatever at [email protected] or just drop me a quick note and say HI!

If you like, you can read my most recent newsletter in the Hillsboro Times Gazette at https://go.ttot.link/TG-Column - I should have that link updated shortly after this edition of the newsletter appears in the online version of the newspaper.