I used to have a habit of going into Hacker News and then immediately read whatever is on the Top page.

This is a very bad reading habit, for two reasons.

One is because of long articles. With short blog posts (probably 2-3 minutes), I can read the entire thing in one setting.

But with incredibly long articles (like 40-50 or 75-minute articles), reading in one setting is practically impossible, and hanging the tab in the browser for eternity will not help with reading it.

The second reason is because I am not consuming content actively.

Rather, I do it passively, which means I just read whatever got on the front page, and not choosing which I think is worth reading or not.

This habit ended up wasting a lot of my time spending online without letting me read anything to the fullest.

After realizing this, I have decided to use read-it-later apps (I use Pocket, but you can use something like Instapaper).

Whenever I saw an interesting article, I saved it into Pocket so I can read it later on.

This also, unexpectedly to me, brings many benefits of read-it-later apps to use: Reading articles offline, Save progress when you leave, Pleasant reading experience, Listen to article, etc.

The bottom line?

Don't read things immediately.

And also use read-it-later apps (if you don't already). They are awesome.