I love this Chrome extension, it’s something that I actually use. Yes, you have to sign up first, but that’s pretty painless. And it’s free. There is a premium version, but it seems unnecessary. Everything that I use is available on the free version.
Why Do I think it’s useful?
I use this to quickly save articles, videos and whatever else to read later. I find this particularly helpful when I’m scanning through Twitter, Flipboard or my favourite blogs. If I see anything that seems interesting I simply ‘pocket’ it to go through later. Create tags that are easy to remember, these can as silly or as practical as you want, whatever will help you remember it.
How do you use it?
To access all the cool stuff you’ve saved click on the cute little pocket to the right of the address bar (remember: use Chrome browser).
When you get started you have “My List” where you find everything that you’ve ‘pocketed’ for later. You end up with what looks like a Pinterest board, it’s really visually appealing, and you can scroll through everything you’ve saved.
The search feature is excellent. I’ve always preferred to use search features in my email or spotlight on my Mac to find everything so I find this makes it very easy to find anything I now have time to read/watch. I’m really bad about not making folders to organize stuff properly (I know, not very librarian-like), so I heavily depend on good search functions.
Here’s what what Pocket looked like when I made this blog (I am constantly removing things as I finish reading them and adding new content, it changes almost daily):
Automatically syncs! Yay!
It automatically syncs to your phone, other computers and tablets. You can view articles offline, excellent for commuting on the metro or bus. This is particularly time saving when you use multiple devices like me. My work laptop and home laptop are now seamlessly connected. No more links saved to my bookmarks on one laptop, which inevitably I forget which one I saved it to and then waste a lot of time hunting around.
Looking for more time saving extensions/apps?
Check out what else there is under the category “productivity”. Tons of great products out there, though it’s easy to waste more time looking through these and testing them than actually saving time by using them…
Kendra Perkins
www.theinspiredlibrarian.com
www.about.me/kendraperkins
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