How to Become a Top 1% Reader with Pocket
We now own infinite libraries and hold them in the palm of our hands.
I started using Pocket during the summer of 2016. Pocket is a tool to save your online articles for later reading. At the end of the year I received a nice email from pocket with a beautiful graphic displaying my reading statistics.
My ego has now been fed by the folks at Pocket for two years. Last year they engaged with me on Twitter!
Reading with Pocket can be done in the gaps of time you have in your day. David Allen talks about the value of always having reading material handy:
“It’s practical to have organized reading material at hand when you’re on your way to a meeting that may be starting late, a seminar that may have a window of time when nothing is going on, a dentist appointment that may keep you waiting, or, of course, if you’re going to have some time on a train or plane. Those are all great opportunities to browse and work through that kind of reading. People who don’t have their Read/Review material organized can waste a lot of time, since life is full of weird little windows when it could be used.”
Impressive customer service and ego stoking graphics are not the only thing Pocket offers. This is the most efficient way I have found to consume information while on the move. Pocket even strips the article down to text and removes the advertisements from your view through their app.
[If you need a reminder why reading is a good idea: Why Read?]
Here are seven strategies I recommend if you are interested in becoming a Pocket 1% Reader:
- Use Feedly to subscribe to feeds from websites you enjoy reading articles from. Feedly has an easy to use button for saving articles to Pocket.
2. Constantly search for long articles to read because deep reading is the best reading. I recommend sites like Nautilus and longreads.com and aeon.co.
3. Choose a paper like the NYTimes or Washington Post and subscribe. Add articles you’re interested in reading later.
4. Add material related to your profession and make Pocket part of your continuing education efforts. Use Twitter follows to track articles shared by influencers related to your trade.
5. Within each article you read there is likely to be a jumping off point for further reading. Pay attention to links within articles for further reading or to your imagination. Follow that attention to things you want to read next. Reading becomes a never-ending spark for more reading in this way.
6. Jot down notes on topics you might like to research further and make google search queries for articles you think you might like to read.
7. Advanced: Use IFTTT to create integrations with other apps you already use such as Medium and Evernote. I dream of an IFTTT integration that saves the items I have saved to Medium’s reading list also to Pocket.
The beauty of Pocket is that you can read anywhere. You can read in the gaps of time you have and then Pocket will save your progress until you can read again. They have a mobile app and the articles are easy to read efficiently anywhere and anytime you have a spare moment.
Recommend some articles or sources for articles!
