What I Like About Pocket

Pocket is what is known as a "read later" app. It allows you store articles you want to read and videos you want to watch at a later time. Here's what I find most useful about it:

It Captures Both Articles and Videos

Prior to using Pocket, I was using another read later app called Instapaper. It was fine at capturing articles, but whenever I tried to save a link for a video into it, it would just save the text value of the link as the title, and I would have to copy and paste the link into a browser. Because the link was in the place where the title was meant to be, I had no idea which video was which, so it was a matter of trial and error when figuring out which video to watch. When I save a video to Pocket, it not only saves the title correctly, but allows me to watch the video directly inside of the app. This helps me not get distracted by other videos that pop up in the YouTube sidebar.

Integration With My Email App, Spark Mail

Pocket has a direct integration with my email app of choice, Spark Mail. I'm able to save links to videos and articles directly from the emails I receive. This helps me tremendously when going through my email inbox. Instead of stopping to read or watch something, I'm able to save interesting things for later, and can continue clearing out my email inbox (see my process for clearing my inbox during my Weekly Review).

Helps Me Not Get Sidetracked

I will often come across articles and videos that look interesting to me while I'm in the middle of another task. Having an app like Pocket allows me to save those interesting things for later, and I can continue working on the task at hand. There are many times later on when reviewing my list in Pocket that things I thought looked intriguing before no longer hold my interest. I'm then able to delete them without having wasted my time watching or reading them.

Syncs Between Devices

I have Pocket on both my iPad and my phone, so anything I save on one shows up on the other. I can save something to my list on my phone, then review it later on my iPad, or vice versa.

Pocket focuses on doing one thing and doing it well, so there's not much else to it. If you're looking to save time and cut down on distractions, go ahead and give Pocket a try.