CDL 039 – Bookmarks Are So 1997 – Discover How to Save Content More Effectively

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Are You Struggling to Find Time to Read Content When You Find It?

Do you constantly come across stories or articles in your newsfeed that you’d love to read, but just don’t have the time?

As busy parents, we are constantly pressed for time. You are running around for your kids, scrambling at work, and trying to catch your breath. Even if you had the time to check your social media accounts, you probably don’t have the time to fully read what is there.

The problem is, you want to read it.

The fact is, you need to read it.

While there is a lot of junk out there circulating on the internet, and especially on social media, there is also a ton of value. If you are to grow intellectually, and in your career, you need to keep up to date with what’s going on.

Every day I find myself coming across articles that I would love to read. Yet, for whatever reason, I simply don’t have the time, at that moment, to check it out.

The Broken Approach of Yesterday

Think back many years ago. If you are are parent you might even remember the pre-internet days. Back then, we would gather newspapers and magazines and stack them in the corner, hoping to one day find that article we saved.

Or, maybe you were one of those people that ripped articles from magazines at the doctor’s office and took them home to store them somewhere.

Then the internet happened. Along with it came more and more content. How did we handle it? We bookmarked our asses off!

This resulted in a list of bookmarks in your browser that left you dazed and confused every time you tried to recall something you saved.

The model is broken.

How to Solve the Problem Today

In this week’s episode I share a few tools and strategies you can use to effectively curate the awesome content that you stumble across. These methods are especially helpful for the busy parent on-the-go.

If you are able to shift your mindset and leave bookmark death row, new tools and approaches will provide you time savings and mental relief.

Native Application Support

Many of the tools you use today to browse content on the internet have embedded capabilities that you might not know exist. For instance, Facebook has a native Save capability.

Next time you are perusing through your Facebook newsfeed and come across an article you’d love to read but can’t, save it.

Here’s how:

1. First of all, the post must have a link if this is going to work. Check to see if there is a link to an article. Most of the articles you see in your newsfeed will have a link.
2. Look up in the right hand corner of the post and you’ll see an arrow. Click on that to show the menu.
3. Click on Save
4. That’s it! Now go about your busy life knowing you can come back and read the article later

When you finally have time to go back and read the article, simply follow these steps:

1. Go to your Facebook home newsfeed and you’ll see menu items on the left side (desktop version)
2. Click on the Saved menu item and you’ll be directed to your saved items where you can read the articles. Easy!

Ninja tip: To access your saved content even quicker, simply go to Facebook.com/saved and you’ll go straight to it. Boom!

Now, if you want to do the same thing from your mobile phone, all you need to do is go to the bottom right of the Facebook app and select the More option. Again, you’ll see a Saved menu item that you can select.

This is a great way to grab those items you like out of your never-ending newsfeed stream and place them somewhere you can revisit later.

In the episode I also discuss how you can do something similar with Twitter.

Services For Saving Content

Ok, so native application support is pretty cool, but you probably don’t want to have everything stored in multiple applications. Sort of defeats the purpose of creating a system.

Perhaps the best way to curate all of the content you want to read later is to use services. One that is very interesting to me, and will probably become part of my toolkit going forward, is Pocket.

Pocket is a very useful FREE application that allows you to save items from over 300 different apps for later reading. There are a number of connectors available including those from major social media networks such as Twitter and capabilities to scrape websites directly from the browser.

Having the ability to centrally collect, manage, and read content is a game changer.

Add the fact you can automate much of the collection process and you are on your way to optimizing your daily content consumption. Using a tool like IFTTT, you can quickly set up automated methods for gathering meaningful content.

To learn more about how Pocket can be leveraged, listen to this week’s episode. To learn more about IFTTT, check out Episode 028 where I break down everything you need to know about that sweet automation tool.

In this episode I also touch on a nice little utility available from Evernote, the Evernote Web Clipper.

Bottom line, given the amount of information we come across every day, you need to implement a strategy for managing what you want to read and when you want to read it.

5TIL (5 Things I Learned)

In this week’s 5TIL I cover the following:

1. Pingroupie
2. The awesomeness of insurance company apps
3. How to find Twitter chats – thanks Jeff Page
4. The value of video in your online marketing efforts
5. The ongoing power of social media and what it meant to a local school district.

As always, if you have something you’d like included in the 5TIL, feel free to email me.