Tech Talk: Reforming a Digital Packrat

Inbox Zero, for me, is a pipe dream. But I'm trying, slowly, to reform my digital-packrat ways and only save what I really need to save.

Last week, Allison Gingras talked about a few ways she's devised of handling information she wants to save for later. I let her know that she's not the only one with this problem.

I have this bad habit, when I'm using Twitter, of coming across a link to an article I'd like to read. Instead of reading it right then and there, I email myself the link.

Then I forget all about it.

My Twitter client, Tweetbot, automatically titles all those emails "tweet by..." and last week I decided I'd sort my inbox by that term, just to see what would happen.

There were 505 emails. 505 articles I'd mailed to myself and then never read. 505 unread items (almost 1/4 of my inbox) just of articles I'd intended to read, but never got around to. Some of them were time-sensitive. Oops.

Image via Pocket.

I actually stopped emailing links to myself a couple of months ago when I discovered Pocket. I was able to set up Twitter to include "Save to Pocket" as a Share option. Now, when I want to save an article for later, I save it to Pocket. It integrates with over 500 apps, including Tweetbot, Twitter, browser extensions, feed readers and more. And it's free.

I can access Pocket on the Web as well as on apps for iOS and Android. If I'm waiting around someplace, I've always got something to read, and I've been pretty good about actually deleting the articles from Pocket once I'm finished reading them.