The Benefit of Deferred Reading

The Benefit of Deferred Reading

Do you have a “Read Later” list, and/or a pile of printed articles that you plan to get to later? If you are sort of ADHD, like me and many others who live with a computer/smartphone/iPad, you probably have a Huge list/pile, because so many things interest you.

You see a topic and you say, “Ooh, I want to know more about that, so I’ll put it in my pile.”

If so, you’ve probably noticed a nice benefit of marking things as Read Later, a benefit expressed well by @longstride of 37signals:

“One of @Instapaper’s best, secret features? Time. It’s amazing how many articles I DON’T want to read a few days after saving them.”

Amen. I use Instapaper a lot: it’s one of my most-used products. I love how it formats articles for easy reading, and how it keeps them in all in one location so I can read the articles at my leisure, instead of being distracted and reading everything I come across “on the spot.” (I generally use the Instapaper app on my iPad for reading, although I sometimes use my Kindle 3.)

Just about every time I go into Instapaper to read, I see a handful of articles that no longer interest me, and so I just delete them. A pretty good time-saver.

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