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Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

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Re: Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

#51

Post by type0 »

SeanMacConMara wrote: post #40

Think of it as stocking a library. You're not supposed to read an entire library. I use Firefox and the "PlainOldFavorites" add-on. This means each bookmark is created as an individual .url file in the Favorites folder. Once a week or so I go through it and delete or move each .url file to the most appropriate folder in my personal library of topics. i.e. If I bookmark something about a new kind of map projection it…

> If it's just a static document at the url, save it as html before link rot finally gets it.

Don't do it (as it saves a lot of files - js, css, images, besides some of those could have malicious code...). Just pdf-print it in Chromium and bookmark that pdf in FF with the same tags.

Re: Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

#52

Post by icc97 »

Dowwie wrote: post #48
icc97 wrote: post #33

Hi my name's Ian and I'm a digital hoarder. I totally agree on the digital hoarding. Just so happens that my mum is a physical hoarder - and that is much worse than a digital one. I have 10872 links inside pinboard. I think there is a big connection between my timewasting and wanting to hoard links. I've managed to trim down any other bookmarking applications so that I just have pinboard. I'd highly recommend this, p…

Have you ever taken a hiatus from new content and focused on reading what you've bookmarked? Has the bookmarked material ever served a use?

No never, I could never read all that I've bookmarked.

It's purely there so that if I have a problem and I vaguely remember that I came across a solution that there's half a chance I can search for it in my bookmarks and find it.

It does serve a use on occasion - I typically star a bookmark that I came back to.

I've starred 74 out of the 10000 bookmarks that I've got. But I've been bookmarking for 10 years and only 'starring' things for about a year.

So ~7% (74 / 1000) I come back to.

Re: Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

#53

Post by Dowwie »

icc97 wrote: post #52
Dowwie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever taken a hiatus from new content and focused on reading what you've bookmarked? Has the bookmarked material ever served a use?

No never, I could never read all that I've bookmarked. It's purely there so that if I have a problem and I vaguely remember that I came across a solution that there's half a chance I can search for it in my bookmarks and find it. It does serve a use on occasion - I typically star a bookmark that I came back to. I've starred 74 out of the 10000 bookmarks that I've got. But I've been bookmarking for 10 years and only '…

You are confirming that you don't use the bookmarked material as resources to solve your problems and recognize how challenging it would be if you were to do so. :)

I gave up relying on starred repos as resources and just give them for recognition. I find repos just fine when I actually need them.

I wrote a github star purge script that would blow your mind if you were to use it -- no more stars!

Re: Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

#56

Post by mercer »

icc97 wrote: post #34
tominous wrote: post #20

Don't worry about the bookmark collection you already have. There's no pressure to read through it and no pressure to throw it away. That's the great thing about a digital hoarding habit -- it doesn't fill up your house and disrupt your life like physical junk would. If you're concerned about the time you spend scanning through HN and creating the bookmarks in the first place, what you should do is replace that activ…

Yes, I do think that often cold turkey with some alternative is the only way to change.

FWIW, I struggle with the same thing and this thread has prompted me to try and do something about it.

Considering that it seems that quite a few other people have the same problem, perhaps it's an idea for those of us who feel troubled about our 'digital hoarding' to collectively try and detox (at least for a while to see how it feels)? Perhaps a 'Junkless July' and a follow-up Ask HN at the end of that?

Re: Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

#57

Post by marcc »

For things that might be useful in the future, I'll just rely on Chrome's history and my own memory (and ability to search for it in Google) to find it if/when needed. That's worked pretty well. Sometimes the search takes a little longer than expected because I'll have to recall the context of where I originally read about it. Remembering that context will often help me find a way to locate the site again.

Alternatively, for articles and content that looks interesting and I want to read, I'm using Pocket on my browser, phone and tablet. Everything I want to read gets saved to Pocket. When I find myself with 15 minutes and looking for something to do, I pull out Pocket, read an article or two and delete them. I do fear that I'll never get through the entire Pocket list though. Maybe I need to take some more long flights to get through this backlog. Pocket is just a different method of digital hoarding though.

I'm not a fan of saving 1000s of bookmarks because that's not really building a collection that I'll consume. I see some people constantly opening new browser tabs with the intent of coming back to read it, which is really just a more ephemeral version of the bookmarking solution.

Re: Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

#58

Post by Jayakumark »

I have the same problem. have 163,836 bookmarks as of today thinking i will get to them one day, Would be better to use some kind of machine learning , nlp to organize and make it publicly accessible someday or When a better summarizer comes along will use it to skim through.

Re: Ask HN: How to manage my bookmarking habit?

#60

Post by icc97 »

mercer wrote: post #56
icc97 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do think that often cold turkey with some alternative is the only way to change.

FWIW, I struggle with the same thing and this thread has prompted me to try and do something about it. Considering that it seems that quite a few other people have the same problem, perhaps it's an idea for those of us who feel troubled about our 'digital hoarding' to collectively try and detox (at least for a while to see how it feels)? Perhaps a 'Junkless July' and a follow-up Ask HN at the end of that?

Sounds like a good idea, I'll put a reminder for myself to ask on 1st Aug.
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