How Pocket and Medium changed my reading habits ?

I am a very lazy person and it is not good for my profession as a Designer.

However, I constantly search the internet for news and blog posts to read. I follow a lot of blogs and check them out regularly.

But I had a problem.

I would never completely read an article or would always lose interest after reading a few lines. It was not because the content were boring and uninteresting, but mostly because the layout were not pleasant for the eyes and hard to read.

The small font size, compact line height, the distracting sidebar and not to forget the irritating subscribe pop-up box from out of no where.

I am not trying to sound *designer-ish *here (if that’s even an actual word), but that was how I felt. And, I hope a lot of you somewhat agree with me here.

The same reason, I have also stopped visiting any blogspot websites because people customize their blogs to have image as background, never realizing that it’s making it even harder to read the content.

A year ago, I was introduced to Pocket by Pranin Shakya, a colleague of mine. He explained to me, how we can instantly save articles to read later on by just a simple click on an icon in the browser or on a mobile device. The fact that it cleans up all the unnecessary clutter making us easier to focus on the content only and also makes it available offline, impressed me.

That day, I had pocketed almost 5—10 articles. And later at night, I was so happy to find them all tidied up and saved offline in my phone’s pocket app, ready to be read.

Same goes with Medium. I fell in love with it the very first time I came here to read an article. I was impressed by how the creators understood what readers would appreciate. The clutter free minimal reading page is a brilliant way to let the readers enjoy distraction free content. And I think they’ve nailed it.

Ever since then, these two services have drastically changed my reading habits. Every morning, I try to read at least two articles and some more before I go to bed. Most of them are the ones I stumble upon during my work hours.

Not only reading, but I have also developed a deep urge in me to write and express myself, which unless for these two I would have never had the courage to even try.

The quick start off writing pane with the minimal and easy to use tool bar provides a warm user experience for the writers.

To let you know, this is my sixth article on medium and I intend to write more.

Btw, this is not a sponsored article. However, I won’t say No if pocket or medium decide to do so wink, wink