My Instapaper workflow
Awhile back I wrote that I was ditching Instapaper and Pocket and using Pinboard for reading later. As it turned out, there was a flaw with that.
Here’s what was missing from Pinboard. The ability to highlight text and add notes as I’m reading.
I read a lot. Reading is where I get the inspiration for many of the articles I write. So Instapaper is part of my blogging workflow. Here’s how it works.
I collect everything I want to read in Instapaper. Once in Instapaper, I highlight things that catch my attention and add notes as I’m reading. If after reading an article I want to comment on it in a blog post or it gives me inspiration for a new article I go to the bottom of the article in iOS and tap Share All Notes. This exports all my highlights and notes to the iOS share sheet. From the iOS share sheet, I send the export to Drafts for delivery to my Writing In Progress folder in Dropbox. Now I can open the file in Byword, BBEdit or iA Writer for editing on my Mac.