Found a good hack how to actually use all those read later bookmarks I saved
Don’t save anything for later! Read it now, create actionable takeaways from it , make a ticket and out in the up next . Instead of throwing it in the read later pile, you actually got something from it!
The "create actionable takeaways" piece is key, and reminds me of the first part of the process described in How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. In a nutshell, you want to convert the important parts of what you read into your own words, write that down, and then add little notes and explanations to help you understand why it was relevant.
This is pretty much the opposite of how I used to "read" articles, which was to toss them into a read-it-later app and never actually read them. 😂 Meanwhile, all of the lighter stuff that I could skim quickly would get read right away.
I flipped that whole thing around and, while it's been an adjustment, it has made a big difference in how I process what I read. Now I have a (digital) notebook out whenever I read anything. I take notes, talk about the ideas that popped into my head, cross-link stuff with other notes, etc.
Later I can come back to the notes and start to assemble them into a product idea, or a blog post, or whatever. I am still working on the writing/output part of the process, but at least I managed to get my browser tabs and note-to-self inbox to zero, which feels like an important first step.
Nice process, thanks for Sharing! 👍