I am a fan of becoming one’s own algorithm, and I may describe my own experiences working towards that in another post. But here I want to endorse a tool I’ve come to depend on for the process, Reader from the folks at Readwise.
Reader is a read-it-later app. There is a browser extension for clipping web pages, which are saved in full and nicely formatted for later reading. Emails (think newsletters) and RSS feeds can also be directed there. Reader also supports saving Twitter feeds, YouTube video transcripts, ebooks, likely other content I don’t know about.
I use the page clipping, newsletter, and RSS feed functions extensively to build a read-it-later repository. I thought at one time this might become a full blown Personal Knowledge Database, a highly curated collection of writings based on my own interests. It hasn’t and probably won’t, something I had to acknowledge after reading “Deleting My Second Brain”. But it is still valuable for how I was actually using it, namely to create and consume a stream of content guaranteed to interest me because I was the algorithm that was cuing it up.
My Reader stream is always at hand for idle scrolling, of course, in those times I might otherwise turn to some service — YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, X — that saves me the trouble of choosing. But my Reader stream also saves me the trouble of choosing — because its contents were selected by some earlier version of me. Much more finely tuned to my actual interests, less influenced by the interests of corporations and other bad actors.
These days I will usually spend an hour or more after breakfast in an easy chair, catching up on the more timely feed items and then diving deeper into longer pieces, until I’m satisfied and ready to move on to doing something else. There’s little danger of doomscrolling because I’m highly engaged with the content; I’ll naturally stop in good time because I’m now filled with thoughts I want to spend some time with on my own. During the day I’ll immediately read or skim shorter, lighter pieces that interest me, but when I encounter anything with substance or depth I’ll take a moment to decide whether or not I genuinely have the time and interest to study it — if so I’ll clip it to Reader, if not I’ll pass it by.
(Some of us have a different take on the value of a curated feed. I’ve been that person as well, at other times — I contain multitudes.)
In endorsing Reader I’m really endorsing the use of some read-it-later app to create a self-curated feed. I’m sure there are others just as capable, perhaps even better. But because I’m already a longtime resident of the Readwise ecosystem, I benefit from centering my consumption there, and I’m glad to report that Reader is more than adequate for that.
(One Reader feature I think is essential: when reading something that contains a link, clicking it gives you the option of reading it in a browser now, or saving it to your Reader feed to read later. I do the latter all the time, and I recommend that any read-it-later app you use have the same feature, you’ll be very grateful for it.)