Managing a "to read" list?
It seems like every time I read an article it links out to 3 more articles that I also want to read but don't have time for that day.
I created a document in Obsidian called "to read" where I store them with title, URL and a copy/pasted bit of text to jog my memory of its contents — but it's getting a bit unwieldy and I wonder if there's some better system.
I also keep a separate "recreational reading" list in NotePlan. How do you manage your list(s)?
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Anything I see on the internet, I save to Omnivore, where I tag it. I read it later, when I have some down time.
There is a logseq plugin that allows one to import any highlights from Omnivore - very useful.
I use mainly two methods. There are two cases, when I'm processing a source (article) or when I'm taking a look on a web page (for example, the active topic of this forum today).
Starting from the second case.
I simply place interesting links in a tree-bullet list into my daily note of today.
Daily note has become the central ingestion point of my system. I have a section "I've collected" into my daily note template.
During the day I read, or at least start reading, some of them. For some of them I extract content, other I discard immediately.
The ones I can't consume during the day (reading and processing making notes, for example), I simply move to the daily note for tomorrow.
There are days in which this list grows too much, inevitably.
At this point I start moving these items into the most suitable notes of my vault that can contain them for the future.
For example, if I have a link to an article about JDBC, I place this link into the Java JDBC note of my sytem, and so on.
Maybe I'll never read that JDBC article, but that page had already the chance for many days for reading, and it will have the chance again to read in the future: when I will need to read about JDBC, I will examine what I've placed during time into the JDBC note.
I sometimes place links that I feel more relevant on top of the list, so there is more chance that I will consider for consuming today rather than in the future (or never...).
This happens in a general "context-free collecting" routine.
When I read and I want process a specific article, instead, and I want to extract ideas and note from this, for the processing purpose I have a dedicate place. this place is into the daily note, again, or into a "source note" created for that article. In one of these places I develop my thoughts, extract the ideas and knowledge, and if I find other relevant links to follow, I place them into the note too, giving a bit of context (for example, writing "read also this article because it talks about...").
In this way, when I have time, I will process the found links after the article where I've taken them.
Even in this case, if the process grows too much and I need to truncate, I simply archive the unprocessed stuff.
Even in this case I can move some links from a source note to the daily note.
Can't recommend anything, really: I can't keep up.
When I read my RSS subscriptions and want to follow up on something interesting, I append an item to an inbox file. It's not im my Zettelkasten, but in my GTD directory. But this just never works for me. It feels good and productive to defer to future-me, but future-me never has that time to follow up on things. Remember Collector's Fallacy? https://zettelkasten.de/posts/collectors-fallacy/
The best thing I do to empty my inbox is, unironically, to select 500 items and delete them.
With more than a handful of short things in the inbox, it's just never going to happen.
A research list is something else, and is very valuable for project-based work. The list acts as a buffer so you can take note of a lead now that you will follow up on when you go through the research later in order to finish a project. A general-purpose "this sounds interesting, I should read it later" box isn't that. A unified inbox can be the staging ground to sort interesting articles into project buckets, though, reducing the time investment from "having to read it" to "having to file it away".
Author at Zettelkasten.de • https://christiantietze.de/
There are many ways, but the most important thing, I think, don't get anxious about consuming everything you collect.
My approach is collecting what is potential useful, but discard and forgetting too what I really don't consume.
Thanks everyone for the input! Like everything else I'm doing nowadays, I'll just keep at it and let a process reveal itself.
I might have to be more strict about what falls under "research" vs "interesting," and I might just have to alter the very fabric of spacetime and insert more hours into each day.
Omnivore looks cool though, I like that I can send my email newsletters there. They might actually get read that way.
I guess it's like my YouTube "Watch Later" playlist that will never be fully consumed. There are just way too many interesting things out there to learn about.
Goes in my Rumen (formerly known as my 2nd Brain): https://zettelkasten.de/posts/building-a-second-brain-and-zettelkasten/
I am a Zettler
I use telegram. I have a few channels I set up where I am the only member. And then I just share anything to that channel that I want to keep or read
I use telegram for taking my fleeting notes
Context: I have over 2000 pdf files with books and articles in my "library" and an untold amount of pdf files "to process" I can't even start with a "to read" list. I manage my pdfs with Zotero (Where certain plug-ins are integral to my workflow!) and have "book notes" in my Zettelkasten (The Archive).
To-read lists don't work at this volume nor do they fit the way I think. I realised that a book often doesn't neatly fit in one particular topic, so even trying to split up to-read lists doesn't work.
I HAVE to process each entry at least for a few minutes, this causes me to be much more selective nowadays (I used to just kinda download anything remotely interesting). I have learned that at least half the stuff I never touch again, and their pertinence quickly drops off over time. If I don't really wanna read it in the next 2 weeks, I probably won't. BUT. because I process my things as much as I can, I sometimes find these gems of books or articles in my zettlekasten.
Let's say I have a mathematics binge and I try to find books that look like they pertain to a particular topic. I basically acquire them and make a "stub" with a short description, I put references to these topics in my notes. Often I don't really have the time to read anything in real depth. Much later I might run into the topic again, and now suddenly I have this back-log of potentially relevant stuff.
More often however, I realise that what I considered to be "one" topic actually can be split into two different topics, or a related problem pops up. So sometimes I realise a pdf fits multiple different topics/notes. What also happens is that a topic I though was interesting, doesn't interest me anymore. Lastly I have had often enough that books and articles that seemed interesting, just aren't that relevant. If they're already in my bibliography (Zotero) I don't delete them. In other words, I kinda do the CODE thing from BASB
See some screenshots for the pdf section of my library, Zotero, and my notes
I rarely keep track of stuff online (mostly Safari's Reading List), I use YouTube downloader for very important YouTube videos I wanna keep/refer to, but more likely I just use the link:
Addendum:
So I now encountered the book "The intellectual life" by Sertillanges again. I find it interesting, but I realize after looking it up, asking perplexity.ai for a summary and looking at Goodreads, that it's just not a good investment for me now. I made a note of it that is "linked" to "What is the meaning of life? [[202408201627]]" because this is the context in which I think I ought to be reminded of this book.
For research papers that would be important I usually find some kind of intellectual trail, e.g., a review, or a comment somewhere, so that's how I would about those things.
Irs extremely handy for that!!!