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I use Pocket to postpone reading articles during the work week. I then go through the list over morning coffee on weekends on my e-reader. Once I removed that i

I use Pocket to postpone reading articles during the work week. I then go through the list over morning coffee on weekends on my e-reader. Once I removed that impulse to read articles immediately as I stumble upon them, I found out that I simply delete like 50-60% of collected links without consuming them. I read books either after work / later on weekends / before bed.

voisin 6y ago
> I found out that I simply delete like 50-60% of collected links without consuming them. This is an interesting result! Why do you suppose this is?
- happyglands 6y ago
  I read an interesting article the other day. "I am always amazed by what happens: no matter how stringent I was in the original collecting, no matter how certain I was that this thing was worthwhile, I regularly eliminate 1/3 of my list before reading. The post that looked SO INTERESTING when compared to that one task I’d been procrastinating on, in retrospect isn’t even something I care about. What I’m essentially doing is creating a buffer. Instead of pushing a new piece of info through from intake to processing to consumption without any scrutiny, I’m creating a pool of options drawn from a longer time period, which allows me to make decisions from a higher perspective, where those decisions are much better aligned with what truly matters to me." https://medium.com/praxis-blog/the-secret-power-of-read-it-later-apps-6c75cc37ef42 https://medium.com/praxis-blog/the-secret-power-of-read-it-l...
  - input_sh 6y ago
    Yup, I was also partially inspired by him when coming up with this approach. Definitely the only "productivity guru" who had a mild impact on my workflow. Looking forward to him converting his Building a Second Brain course to a book, because no way in hell I'm paying a thousand bucks for a course.
- pyrophane 6y ago
  I do the exact same thing. For me I think it has to do with the fact that when I am going through everything I'm confronted by how long it would take to read everything I have saved previously, so I'm much more in the mind to get rid of stuff to make the overall readjng time manageable.
- input_sh 6y ago
  Plenty of reasons, but among the top ones: - They don't seem as interesting as they appeared to be at first. Example: https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-hackers-now-he-wants-to-redeem-them/ https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-ha... (captivating title, but I find Doctorow's fiction mediocre at best) - I open them, get their essence in the first few sentences, decide it's not worth the time compared to others in queue. Example: https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-youtube-dl-is-back/ https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo... (don't need to spend 8 min on that, I got the gist from the title) - Context gets removed. I forget what made me save them, making my judgement on them more objective. Example: https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/how-seriously-read-scientific-paper https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/how-seriously-rea... (I read like 2-5 papers a year front-to-back, I don't really need to know this)
iex_xei 6y ago
I do the same and yes, results are similar. I delete most of the material I marked after some time. It also prevents me to chase the breaking news. When I go over a list, usually the "breaking" value is already lost so I can skip them. I also have a two or three layer setup. I star the material in rss reader, then if it looks ok after some time, I add to Pocket. I skim the article in Pocket and if it looks worthy enough, I favorite it and an IFTTT rule adds it to Instapaper. I read once more in Instapaper. In my opinion, if you don't think you'll revisit an article, it's not worth reading even once. Edit: typo

voisin 6y ago

> I found out that I simply delete like 50-60% of collected links without consuming them. This is an interesting result! Why do you suppose this is?

happyglands 6y ago
I read an interesting article the other day. "I am always amazed by what happens: no matter how stringent I was in the original collecting, no matter how certain I was that this thing was worthwhile, I regularly eliminate 1/3 of my list before reading. The post that looked SO INTERESTING when compared to that one task I’d been procrastinating on, in retrospect isn’t even something I care about. What I’m essentially doing is creating a buffer. Instead of pushing a new piece of info through from intake to processing to consumption without any scrutiny, I’m creating a pool of options drawn from a longer time period, which allows me to make decisions from a higher perspective, where those decisions are much better aligned with what truly matters to me." https://medium.com/praxis-blog/the-secret-power-of-read-it-later-apps-6c75cc37ef42 https://medium.com/praxis-blog/the-secret-power-of-read-it-l...
- input_sh 6y ago
  Yup, I was also partially inspired by him when coming up with this approach. Definitely the only "productivity guru" who had a mild impact on my workflow. Looking forward to him converting his Building a Second Brain course to a book, because no way in hell I'm paying a thousand bucks for a course.
pyrophane 6y ago
I do the exact same thing. For me I think it has to do with the fact that when I am going through everything I'm confronted by how long it would take to read everything I have saved previously, so I'm much more in the mind to get rid of stuff to make the overall readjng time manageable.
input_sh 6y ago
Plenty of reasons, but among the top ones: - They don't seem as interesting as they appeared to be at first. Example: https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-hackers-now-he-wants-to-redeem-them/ https://www.wired.com/story/his-writing-radicalized-young-ha... (captivating title, but I find Doctorow's fiction mediocre at best) - I open them, get their essence in the first few sentences, decide it's not worth the time compared to others in queue. Example: https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-youtube-dl-is-back/ https://github.blog/2020-11-16-standing-up-for-developers-yo... (don't need to spend 8 min on that, I got the gist from the title) - Context gets removed. I forget what made me save them, making my judgement on them more objective. Example: https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/how-seriously-read-scientific-paper https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/how-seriously-rea... (I read like 2-5 papers a year front-to-back, I don't really need to know this)

iex_xei 6y ago

I do the same and yes, results are similar. I delete most of the material I marked after some time. It also prevents me to chase the breaking news. When I go over a list, usually the "breaking" value is already lost so I can skip them. I also have a two or three layer setup. I star the material in rss reader, then if it looks ok after some time, I add to Pocket. I skim the article in Pocket and if it looks worthy enough, I favorite it and an IFTTT rule adds it to Instapaper. I read once more in Instapaper. In my opinion, if you don't think you'll revisit an article, it's not worth reading even once. Edit: typo