1% Pocket

Pocket sent out an email to its users this week containing their personal stats after a year’s worth of reading-it-later. I’m an avid user of Pocket, but even so it surprised me that I’ve read the equivalent of a 100 books this year in Pocket.

The overview also told me I read mostly about tech, movies and design and that I read on my iPad 50% of the time. Nothing new there. But what surprised me is the graph below.

If you asked me when I read I would say a lot in the weekend, less during the week. But the line clearly shows a steady decline once the weekend begins. Completely different from what I intuitively expected.

After a few days of pondering and making a mental note each time I used Pocket, I think I know what triggered this behaviour. During the day I save links for later because I don’t have time to read anything longer than a tweet. And at night I go through the saved articles clearing out the list. Each day from the dozens of articles I save, I leave one or two articles for the weekend because I really want to read them with 100% focus. The other articles? Most of them are short articles or news-related items. I often skim them or stop reading half way through. So I read a lot of short stuff during the week, and a few real during the weekend.

Since more news is published during the week than during the weekend I end up with a lot more content monday-friday, hence the higher graph points on weekdays.

The fact that saved and read follow the same curve, and read is slightly during the weekend kinda supports this premise.

It’s surprising how much stats can tell you about your life.