We are simply inundated with information, every moment of the day. From articles, videos, and podcasts you stumble upon in your daily feed to those shared by friends or colleagues, everything is just so interesting! And distracting. “Time management” may be a productivity buzz phrase but today our real problem is “Focus”.
Want to avoid having your day thrown off just because something fascinating (and shiny!) just happened to show up? Allotting a specific time for daily reading may be the answer.
Sure, that’s easy to say, but you may be thinking “if I don’t read it now, I’ll never find it again!” Enter Social Bookmarking. These are apps that, at the minimum , provide you with a means to store articles for reading later. Others go a step further and search out content that will truly float your boat. Here are a few popular ones we’ve explored for you:
Pocket is a simple “save for later” application that lets you save and download articles, video or other tidbits that you encounter while online. Because it’s not just a link to an external article, Pocket is a great choice if you’re often offline and wishing you could catch up on your reading.
You will appreciate the efficiency of its clean, text- only reading screen for powering through all that compelling content.
If your social media profile is lacking consistent content, Pocket can easily share your articles to multiple social networks.
Instapaper is another good option for saving and organizing the content you find on the internet. A simple push of a button in your browser, or “share” to Instapaper on your mobile device and that article is saved in your Instapaper app. Like Pocket, these articles can be synced to your device, ready for viewing when you’re offline.
The Instapaper app boasts an uncluttered, reading-optimized format on your mobile device that makes reading a pleasure. Social media sharing is also a single button push.
StumbleUpon is a popular “Content Discovery” tool that helps users find the content they are most interested in. It’s also used to promote content. Through its collaborative filtering, communities with similar interests are created, increasing the likelihood that you will "stumble upon" pages matching your personal interests.
As you create your account, a quick interview will capture 10 topics you are interested in and then begin offering up sites based on this. You can save any discovered links to personal lists that you create, making it quick to find that favourite article later on.
Delicious began simply as a Social Bookmarking app but has added Content Discovery to its toolbelt. Links to your discoveries are kept online, and organized however you desire. The more you add, the more Delicious learns your preferences and helps find what you love to read. Their internal search engine is powerful and intuitive so you spend less time searching for that link you saw and more time enjoying the read.
Digg is a Content Discovery app and a Social News Site. As you search for content through Digg, you, and other users, affect the popularity of articles and how they are offered. This site is popular for bloggers wanting to increase traffic to their blogs. As a Social Bookmarking tool, it provides a means to search the internet for anything you are interested in and will save the links for reading later in a similar fashion to Delicious and StumbleUpon.
Ready to move ahead with the Fascinating Social Bookmarking App that’s right for you? Don’t forget to schedule reading time into your calendar and - of course - yes we do that!