Want to read web pages later and from your other devices?

By Sandra Clitter  

How many times have you found yourself waiting in line, sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room, racing to meet someone for a lunch or coffee only to get that text that says ‘Sorry, but I’m running 15 minutes behind’? I can answer for myself – often (I’m also a perennially early person – when I’m on time I feel late, so I often have a few minutes to spare when I arrive somewhere).

What do you do to make this time ‘productive’? I often find myself reading the ‘newspaper’ on my phone. There are many times, however, that I would rather be reading something that I had WANTED to read, but didn’t have time to read when I ran across it. In other words, that article in PC World that I meant to get back to, or an article on what my beloved Phillies are going to do in the off-season to shore up the bullpen. Be clear, these weren’t articles in a magazine or newspaper that I ripped out to get back to later…these were online articles that I just didn’t have time to read when they flashed across my screen. Oh, I’ll bookmark the pages…and say ‘I’ll get back to that when I have time’, then the free time and my ability to locate the article and my proximity to my desktop that contains the bookmark are all in different places on the space-time continuum. In other words, the articles probably don’t get read.

Enter the neatest little application by the name ‘Pocket’. Pocket allows you to take all the articles you want along with you on any device you use. Best of all, it is SIMPLE and FREE. How easy? Real easy:

Simply go to http://getpocket.com/ and sign up for an account. They only ask for a username, password and email address. That’s it.

pocket signup form

Once you create your signon, you’ll be taken to a screen which allows you to choose how you want to save your pages:

pocket getting started

Clicking on the ‘Learn How’ link takes you to this screen:

pocket how to save

Install the add-on to your browser that will allow you to ‘pocket’ the articles. Once you’ve installed it, then this icon appears in your browser:

Click on that icon from any page and it ‘illuminates’:

That illuminated icon means that the webpage has been ‘pocketed’ and will be available from any other device on which you have Pocket installed.

Start ‘pocketing’ any articles that you want to ‘get back to’. They’ll appear on your Pocket dashboard:

Now, go to the App Store for your ‘other’ device(s) and download the Pocket App. You’ll be able to read any of those articles – wherever you are and whenever you have the time. If you want to get fancy, you can tag archived items in order to group similar articles together. There are even options for saving via email or Twitter (in fact, over 300 apps let you ‘Pocket’ directly). Now that you’re aware of Pocket, you’ll start seeing the little pocket icon show up in lots of places.

Here’s to making non-productive time more productive!


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