Kindle: Resurrection

How I finally became an avid reader with Kindle.

Originally published on my blog, kubilayerdogan.net. Cover image generated by DALL·E 3.

I always wanted to be a regular reader who reads at least several books a year, if not a month. I tried ways like setting goals for intrinsic motivation or publishing progress for extrinsic. Over a decade ago, purchasing a Kindle was another step in that direction.

Just like the other things, the Kindle didn't help. Not that I had a problem with the product; I didn't know what to expect from it. Although it took me a while, I finally devised my strategy for being a regular Kindle user. Below, you can find what I discovered along the way.

1. I cannot replace physical books with Kindle

I first looked for the Kindle version whenever I wanted to read a book. I always thought the activity of reading would be much easier that way. This may be true, but it just isn't enough for me. I've realized that I enjoy reading physical books most of the time and don't mind the inconvenience of holding them or rotating their pages.

2. I must keep myself away from distractions, physically

Even when reading something on Kindle, any phone notification or a "quick" Google search can get me away from the current activity for good. I position myself in the farthest corner of the room from any other screen to avoid that. "Just don't look at other screens" doesn't work for me.

3. I must manage my mental capacity wisely

If you are not a native English speaker, an English-to-English dictionary sometimes does more harm than good. Even if you have no problems understanding it, your brain works much more than it would with an English-to-your-language dictionary. Then, reading becomes exhausting and less appealing over time. Using a dictionary in your language significantly reduces this mental overhead. The great thing about Kindle is using multiple dictionaries at a time, so, you can still resort to alternative translations.

These are all about how I think I should use my Kindle. What about what should I use it for?

Contrary to this post, I figured out what before how. As my inbox was flooded with new issues of engineering and leadership newsletters every week, I tried to read my way out of them pertinaciously. This turned out to be a failure on a computer for two main reasons: It didn't feel very healthy for my eyes, and I was keen on dropping reading as soon as I got a distraction. Printing the newsletters wasn't an option either, as it was environmentally questionable and didn't feel sustainable in the long run. That's when I was reminded of my Kindle, laying in some drawer, out of battery for weeks (maybe even months).

So here's what I've been trying for a couple of months: Once or twice a week, I skim through the newsletters in my inbox and send the ones that look interesting to my Kindle. Most of the issues I receive contain lists of other articles, so I need to go through many links, but the whole exercise does not take more than 10-15 minutes.

Successes

• Sending to Kindle is somewhat convenient (on an iPad or using the Chrome extension): I share the webpage via the Kindle app/extension, and it appears on the device with a reasonably good layout.

• My inbox remains clean and up-to-date.

• As I don't keep seeing unread newsletters, I am less anxious about them

Improvement areas

• After just a couple of weeks, the content on Kindle is too hard to manage. Using collections helps, but the slow hardware doesn't (I recently discovered that I could organize the collection on my phone, which is in sync with Kindle)

• Moving the unread content from my inbox to my Kindle gives a false sense of accomplishment: I must keep reminding myself that I must read what's in my Kindle inbox before there's more.

• Layout issues on the output when the source material is enrichened with embedded HTML, like tweets, etc.

• Delivery to Kindle part feels less fun every day and is hard to automate

Optimization comes after going from 0 to 1, so I am still evaluating successes and consistency before setting my eyes on things to improve. Thankfully, there's nothing that's not workable.