How I Replaced “Read Later” Lists and with What

I’ve got a problem with “Read Later” lists: they accumulate a lot of articles that I “never get to actually reading.” Instead of those lists, I now have two alternatives.

The first option is I place links to articles right on my desktop:

“Read Later” is only visible in an empty browser tab—it’s non-noticeable, so it gets cluttered. Links on the desktop are annoying to the eyes, I want to clean up the desktop—it encourages me to read the articles.

The second option is that from my phone, I send links to my saved messages in Telegram. Notification of a new message attracts my attention as well as a link on the desktop. The key, of course, is to read the article, otherwise the notification goes away.

All this works with articles that I “want to read but can’t get myself to actually do it.” Links that may be needed for work are a different story; I have a separate bookmarks folder in my browser for them.

So far, I’ve been doing this for about two month and never had more than four links in the queue, which is a big progress for me 🙃