My friend Jonathan Cliff introduced me to this little app and I must say, it’s beyond fantastic.

I’ll be the first to admit it, I’m a tab addict. At any given time, I could have as many as 20-30 tabs open in my browser. Currently I have 13 open, but that’s only because I restarted my computer yesterday and lost the tabs that were open. Oops. Good thing I have a browser plugin that saves my tabs (I’m telling you, I have a serious problem).

On a daily basis, I’ll have a dozen tabs that I’m actively working out of, tabs with multiple email accounts, google drive account and document, my calendar, facebook, twitter an many more. However, things used to get far more complicated when I’d come across a page or article that I wanted to read but just didn’t have the time at the moment. In the past, I’d simply leave the tab open with plans to come back and read it when I had time. Yes, sometimes that tab would remain open for weeks.

I know, some people suggested bookmarks… but I’m just not the bookmark kind of guy. They take more time to organize or clean up than they’re worth messing with. Plus, many of these tabs are just pages I want to glance at, nothing more.

Well, then came pocket. 

Pocket solved my little problem and provided several additional solutions.

Pocket is a browser extension/add on that comes in a mobile app form as well. When browsing the web and I come across a page of interest, I simple click the pocket icon on my browser and the page is instantly saved. After saving, pocket asks me if I’d like to add any tags, making it easier to sort for later.

So here’s the fun part. Next time I’m waiting for an appointment, I can open my pocket app on my iPhone and catch up on all those “would be tabbed” pages. I can access my pocketed items from my computer, from any web browser and form my mobile devices. I can read it within the app or I can have the app send me to the original page. After reading, I can keep it in my pocket, delete it or simply archive and mark as “read.” This is perfect for cleaning out the clutter but keeping around for reference later.

Another way that I like to use pocket is for internet research. When searching for specific information on a topic, I simply add every page I find to pocket and tag the page “(enter name here).” When I’m ready to study, I simply open up pocket and display all pages with this tag. This saves me a lot of time organizing.

So, if you haven’t checked out pocket yet, go get it!