The One Trick for Keeping Up with Your Online Reading

	Jumpstart Monday | Get your week off to a great start with the Day-Timer blog. Each Monday we’re going to feature a new tip to help you gain a more productive week at work and at home.
Today’s tip: Create a weekly “Read This” message

You have a daily frustration. What to do with that great article you found online?

You can stop to read it and disrupt your productivity, or you can save it for later in a vast sea of bookmarks you never seem to return to. If you just leave it altogether, you may never find it again.

Here’s a simple, effective trick for saving articles to read later:

Try This:

Create a weekly “Read This” email message to save your links with the following steps:

• Open a new email message in Outlook, or other email program
• Enter the subject line as: “Read This” with today’s date
• Copy and paste the article’s link in the message body
• Write brief summary why you should read it
• Email the message to yourself
• Keep working
• Next article you find: open message, hit reply, repeat above steps
• Schedule time each week to catch-up with your reading at work or at home

At week’s end, you can save your Read This message in an inbox folder labeled “To Read” or you can simply choose to delete the links altogether.

Here’s Why:

This simple method keeps your weekly links on one single message that doesn’t clog your inbox, and won’t clutter your bookmarks folders with dated and trivial articles.

It also helps keep you on track while you’re working, because it frees you from the obligation of reading something now for fear of never finding it again.

Try it out today. The key is to make the decision now to read later, and stay focused on your work.

Day-Timer Spokesperson Jeff Doubek can be reached at [email protected]