Read for 30 minutes a day…

Administration | Software | Web
May 3, 2011

Bill Hybles challenged me to “Read for 30 minutes a day.” Well, I was in the room when we said that and it challenged me. Reading helps me be a better thinker, reading challenges my position with other’s thoughts, reading get’s me away from TV, and “I don’t know what I don’t know.” A professor once said, “you need to read a lot and read from experts in the field, they ask questions you never thought to ask and give you answers you never knew you didn’t know.” I probably do not have to convince you that reading is a good thing. I actually do not enjoy “sitting down with a good book,” I have to make this happen in my life. Here are a few tech resources that help reading become less painful for me.

Twitter: Spending 30 minutes reading tweets really does not count but sometimes you get a good nugget to chew on. I am a fan of TweetDeck and Hootsuite.

Books: I stick with Kindle because that is where I started my ebooks collection and I can read them on any of my devices. If you have Kindle books then all your notes and highlights are stored here. Chime in below with your favorite features from your Kindle, Nook, iBook, or other eReader.

Articles: I love downloading and reading PDF files with iAnnotate PDF. If you have an iPad and read a lot of PDF documents this app is more than a reader. Click the link and look at it’s features. It is kind of pricey at $9.99 but this app is outstanding!

News: I rarely pick up a news paper, in fact most of my news come when my favorite TV program is interrupted by a breaking news. If I am looking for news I get it from an app on my iPad like Fox News, CNN, USA Today or apps like Zite, Flipboard, and Pulse News that download news and blog feeds.

Blogs: Google Reader is my favorite feed reader for collecting and reading a lot of blogs (the “J” and “K” keys are your friend!) But if you want to take notes and send them to friends try Awesome Highlighter (It is currently down, but keep checking the link…it’s a cool free tool). And I am currently going crazy with Instapaper, it takes away the clutter and stores your tagged posts for reading later. Create a free account and if you want to go the extra mile check out the app, it isn’t free but it is wroth the expense. Zite, Flipboard, and Pulse News apps have an Instapaper button, sending stories to your account for some follow-up or later reading.

 

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