Using Pocket and Audible to Manage Content Overload
I personally best consume books, articles, blog posts, etc. through an auditory source. I have found that I am able to focus on the content, get through more faster, and retain the information better this way. It also makes it really easy to keep up with reading on the go. If this resonates with you, here are some ways I do this that might also be helpful.
Pocket and Audible
The two apps I use are Pocket and Audible. I often find myself skimming through Facebook, Twitter, email newsletters, or down other internet rabbit holes and come across articles I want to save to read later. Especially on Twitter, people will “like” a post as a means of saving the included link to read later. Pocket is a great place to save these instead. When I have some time (typically when I’m commuting), I will start playing through the articles I have saved up using the Listen (TTS) feature in Pocket. Once you have downloaded the app and saved your first article, you can check out the Listen feature. Think of Pocket as a kind of self curated podcast.
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I use Audible to purchase and read audio books. Pretty plain and simple point there. What I love most about Audible is that you can adjust the audio up to 3x the speed. Depending on the audio book reader’s speaking cadence, I find 1.5x — 2x the speed is a good pace for me. Possible spoiler: From the survey I got over the weekend from Audible, it sounds like the company could be adding audio versions of articles from major news publications in addition to audio books in the near future.
Pro Tips
Add Alex
To make the listen feature more bearable on iPhone, I highly recommend upgrading speech settings to “Alex.” Alex is the most natural sounding voice, still slightly robotic, but much better than the default. Alex uses 869MB of storage space, so make sure you have the space available prior to downloading. Here’s how to get Alex:
Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Speech > Add New Language > Choose English (U.S) > Tap the More Info button next to English (U.S.) from the Rotor Languages list > Select Alex
*I am sure Android has a version of this as well. I am an iPhone user, so I have not personally tested out their options myself yet.
Pocket Bookmarklet for Desktop
Add the Pocket Bookmarklet to your desktop browser to easily save links with one click and add tags to the content to make it easy to sort through later.
From my experience on mobile, it is really easy to save content directly to Pocket using the share button in which ever app you are using.
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Facebook is the only mobile app I have found it difficult to save links to Pocket fluidly from. In that case, I just copy the link > open the Pocket app > Pocket will identify that you recently copied a link and prompt you to save it to your feed. Just a few more clicks, but still do-able.
IFTTT Recipes
There are also numerous IFTTT recipes for Pocket which can be found here: https://ifttt.com/pocket
My favorite sources of content:
- Nuzzel: Feed of the top shared content from people you follow on Facebook and Twitter
- Techmeme: One stop shop for top tech news stories
- Mattermark Daily: Curated newsletter of top entrepreneur and investor articles
- The Skimm: Current event news skimmed down so you can get up to speed and to the point
If you feel so inclined, you can follow me on Pocket here.
I hope this was helpful to you. If you have other ways you manage your own content consumption, I would love to hear about them in the comments.