Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.
For whatever reason, the Achilles Heel of my life online has long been my bookmarking system. I read a lot, write a lot, and am constantly looking for “that thing I read that one time that would be totally perfect right now!”
In my search for the perfect system, I’ve learned that many, many people have the same problem: we come across all this cool stuff, and there’s no system in place to put it somewhere we’ll reliably find it, or remember it exists, ever again. I promised that, if I figured out a system, I’d share it.
Well, here goes.
This is a system that works perfectly – for me. That’s not to say it’ll work for you, or be even remotely useful for you, but it’s a hole-free, functional system for me. It’s got four basic components, in three applications:
“Things I Want to Read”
A lot of the things I bookmark are articles, blog posts, or stories that I want to read. Usually, when I’m browsing the Web and find these articles, I don’t have time to read them, so I need a place to put them. That place is Instapaper. I’ve got a folder called “To Read,” and every article I want to read goes in there. Then, I can read it on my Android phone (thanks to an awesome app called InstaFetch), my iPod Touch via the great Instapaper app, and at any computer.
A couple of rules: the only thing that ever goes into Instapaper is reading material. If it’s a video, or pictures, or a song, it belongs elsewhere. Also, when something gets read, it either gets deleted or gets moved to a more appropriate place. That means that Instapaper is only for reading, and that the list is constantly evolving, never giving me things I don’t need to see.
“Do Something With This”
Apps to test, articles to share, sources for a paper I’m writing – all these things are bookmarks I need to do something with. So, accordingly, they go where everything goes that I need to deal with – my Evernote “Inbox” notebook.
Instead of an application like Delicious or Diigo, which don’t handle the content of pages well, Evernote’s Web Clipper actually clips the content of the page I’m on into Evernote. I can go through, glance at every page, and instead of opening a million links to find what I’m looking for, just flip through my notes (or, better yet, search them) to find the right one.
My recommendation for this one is to find a way to work these bookmarks, things you need to do something with, into your regular system. Don’t use a new application, because it’s just one more inbox to check. Even if you send everything to yourself by email, figure out how to bring all these bookmarks into your existing system. For me, since Evernote’s already my inbox for everything, it works great.
“Might Need This One Day”
I think the general problem with bookmarks is that they tend to fall into the category of “ooh, this sounds interesting, maybe I’ll care about it again some day.” We see and save hundreds of those things, and then get hopelessly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers.
Evernote, though admittedly not a perfect solution for bookmarking, has become my solution – things I might want to use, reference, or look up one day, but don’t want in my face right now. Again, since it stores the full content of the page, it makes searching for the little bits of a quote or product name that I can still remember, rather than hunting through hundreds of links. The search is also more powerful than most bookmarking systems, making things that much easier to track down.
A tip: combine the Evernote clipper with the Readability bookmarklet, as described by 40Tech. It’ll only clip the relevant parts of the page to Evernote, so your search results don’t get cluttered by people’s sidebars, footers, and annoying intro pages.
“I Like This Site”
The last thing I have bookmarks for is just sites I like. If I’ve got a few minutes to kill, these are sites I visit to find something cool, something good to read, or to learn something new and interesting. I don’t want a specific article, I just want to peruse the sites.
Delicious works beautifully. I save links to a number of my favorite sites in my Delicious, and I can get them from any computer, add to them or delete a few, and even share them with others (though that’s basically what I did with Digitizd Library). Since I don’t want a specific article, Instapaper doesn’t make sense, and since I don’t want the page as it was at a given time, neither does Evernote. Delicious works best when it can be nothing but links, and that’s exactly what it is.
This is obviously a fairly complex system, and it’s only for people who really consume and share as much as I do. But whether you fit into one of these categories or all of them, I’m betting the solution will serve you well.
How do you handle bookmarks? Let me know in the comments, I’m always game to tweak the system!
I've stopped using bookmarking services – except for the wonderful Instapaper. I wish they'd build in functionality that just emailed me in text form all my Instapaper finds once a week. (I Tweeted this yesterday and had a few people raving about Instafetch but I don't have an iPhone.)
I use Posterous, Tumblr and Amplify now hooked up to a custom Google Search engine – it's mindful, I can provide personal context and, most importantly, I can thread items together with credits from the people who pointed me there.
Hi David,
Over the last few weeks I've pretty much implemented the exact system – with one exception. Instead of InstaPaper I use ReadItLater: http://readitlaterlist.com/
Don't know if it's better, it's just been the first such app I got my hands on.
In combination with Netvibes as a personal dashboard (with all my relevant feeds and widgets) I finally, for the first time have the feeling of being able to manage and stay on top of things from anywhere.
ReadItLater IS really good, and there's honestly no reason to switch to Instapaper. Their functionality is basically identical, I just like the look of Instapaper a little better.
Netvibes is a smart call, too – having a start page is a good complement to all this, knowing where everything is and how to get to it. Thanks for the idea!
I already use a similar system. When I come across something I want to ead at a later date or that pertains to a particular topic, I click on my “Gmail This!” bookmarklet and then once it reaches my Gmail inbox, I label it “To Read”.
In Gmail, I have the shortcut key Lab experiment enabled, so I just hit “G” and “L” and type in my label and up comes my list.
What kind of phone do you have? InstaFetch is an Android app, and I'm betting we can find an app for any other smartphone too.
I LOVE the idea of the personal search engine, but have a couple questions. Are the sites private or public? And how did you build the search to work across them all? It's such a cool idea, especially given the ability to add notes and context, I'd love to hear more. Maybe a guest post is in order?
Hello from Spain,
Interesting post… I'm reluctant to new services and user accounts so I like to use the almighty google whenever I can. I'm using Google Bookmarks + the excellent GMarks firefox extension for just bookmarking my favourite sites and Google Reader + “Note in Reader” bookmarklet for saving and tagging the actual content of pages I want to read or refer later.
Then I can use WinMobile phone to read some stuff and Google Reader reformats the pages automatically for better viewing.
I'm trying to limit the number of applications I use. So I stopped Instapaper & Read it later and just save 'read later' items to separate folder in Evernote. With my premium account I can access anywhere on or off-line. Bookmarking is reserved for only items that I will use on a regular basis. I use x-marks so all is synchronized across computers and both chrome & FF browsers
Interesting… I thought about doing almost the same thing, using Evernote for reading material. I ran into two problems, though: I couldn't get it offline on my Android phone, and it just took longer. The app's a bit slow to boot, there were hoops to jump through – Instapaper just opens, and I'm reading. Love the simplicity and speed of that.
I'm using pretty much the same system with one addition – Starred Items in Google Reader. I use this for articles I've read and may need to reference again in the future. I can use the “Send to Evernote” link in Reader, but it adds at least 1 extra step and navigation to a new tab. It's just too easy to give it up as is (plus I have hundreds of starred items in there from before I started to use Evernote).
The holy grail for me would be if Evernote could “subscirbe” t0 my RSS feeds of my Google Reader Starred Items and Delicious bookmarks. Then I could truly use Evernote to “Remember Everything” and search in just one place.
Have you tried using the Instapaper bookmarklet for this? I use it all the time, and it's one of the biggest reasons I switched back to Instapaper. It will recognize the current item in Reader, and will save that one – no new tab, only takes one click. Worth a look, if you haven't tried it already!
I have tried that, and I do like that about Instapaper (better bookmarklets than ReadItLater – why I switched as well), but like you, I only use Instapaper as a placeholder for items that need “to be read”. If they are worthy of further archive – it gets moved – mostly to Evernote. These also tend to be longer articles or posts rather than just a quick blog post I may read.
I guess what I use the Google Reader Starred Items for is more along the lines of “I've read that, and hey, that's interesting, I might need to use that again someday”.
The way I see it, there are two solutions to what I want:
1- Evernote accepts and indexes a private/personal RSS feed from Google Reader, Delicious, and Instapaper (all three currently have private RSS feeds for your items)
2-Evernote allows you create a personal RSS feed of your Evernote items. I could then add the RSS feed into Google reader and search in one spot from there via a Reader folder.
Ideally #1 is the solution, since Evernote certainly does more searching within images and such. I feel like the solution you and I are using is really close.. if I could just get this one more thing it would be perfect!
Hi David, I've been looking forward to this article since yesterday. Finally it is here. What I found most interesting, valuable about the article… are the comments, the various points of view to this problem. Your article has sum it up, what I have already knew. Anyway still thanks for it.
I like the latest commentary from Tom, the Evernote is very handy and it might become even more handy, for me absolutely the main core of my info system. If only the authors make the Tom's solution #1 come true.
Using the GR too, it should help my system to become version “2.0″, next evolution step – the sync between my two most used apps, GR and Evernote.
Once again, thanks for the opportunity to read this and to others for their comments.
David,
Your post and all the terrific comments made for very interesting reading. I wrote about this a while back discussing how the information processing theory fits with the model of “bookmarking” in the Web 2.0 era. My post was more for physicians trying to keep up with the fast expanding database medical literature. I confined myself to using Google reader and Zotero (for Firefox).
Now I am stimulated to revisit this topic. http://blogedutech.blogspot.com/2009/04/practic...
Thanks!
With the exception of Instapaper (have been using ReadItLater off and on,) this is my exact set-up. I view Evernote as the “modern day filing cabinet” with a big advantage being that it's digital and won't flow over into your garage! I too like Delicious for just storing the site itself (as opposed to articles on the site.) That constraint helps distinguish its' role from that of Evernote and a “To Read” application. Yet another great post, David!
P.S. I read your post out of my Evernote in-box as I have your content route directly to “In.” It's consistently that good!
David,
Your post and all the terrific comments made for very interesting reading. I wrote about this a while back discussing how the information processing theory fits with the model of “bookmarking” in the Web 2.0 era. My post was more for physicians trying to keep up with the fast expanding database medical literature. I confined myself to using Google reader and Zotero (for Firefox).
Now I am stimulated to revisit this topic. http://blogedutech.blogspot.com/2009/04/practic...
Thanks!
With the exception of Instapaper (have been using ReadItLater off and on,) this is my exact set-up. I view Evernote as the “modern day filing cabinet” with a big advantage being that it's digital and won't flow over into your garage! I too like Delicious for just storing the site itself (as opposed to articles on the site.) That constraint helps distinguish its' role from that of Evernote and a “To Read” application. Yet another great post, David!
P.S. I read your post out of my Evernote in-box as I have your content route directly to “In.” It's consistently that good!
This is cool, but its' too complicated, I mean i's not really simple. I use AliveBookmark program and that is what I needed. It's very easy-to-use and simple. I can save any part of any webpage as a bookmark, I can save as many as I want. And later, even if I close the program, if there are updates on those bookmarked sites the program notifies me immediately. You can see more detail on program on its website:
http://alivebookmark.com/