My parents still subscribe to the daily newspaper, so when I visit home, my morning ritual invariably involves crinkly paper and the delicious smell of newsprint. In my own home, I'm mostly digital but the start of my day is still my own cobbled together electronic newspaper. Especially in a period of enforced inactivity (thanks Doc!), I find myself reading more than ever.
For me, there are three main values: gaining perspective on the marketplaces and industries that I work in, finding great inspiration for my blog posts and also to feel more generally informed about the world in which we live. A number of people recently have asked where I like to spend my online reading time so in no defined order, here are the regulars of my daily reading diet:
- Quartz Daily Brief - a quick update on important US and global news topics of the moment. Also includes interesting interludes and tidbits of knowledge including such interesting stories as The DuPont invention that changed the corporate world
- Medium Daily Digest - an eclectic mix of stories written by real people. I find that there are too many stories to go through in detail but in a quick skim, a few always catch my eye and are worth a read. A recent favorite includes 7 drawings to make you feel better
- Mattermark Daily - a hand curated list of first-person insights from VCs and entrepreneurs
- Vox Sentences - A breezy overview of important news topics with links to the detailed articles. If you haven't tried any of Vox's card stacks to give you the real story on what's going on with any important news topic, you should! It's a bit like a Buzzfeed listicle but I like them nonetheless. Here's a great one: 18 facts you need to know about ISIS
- CB Insights - Great research briefs and articles on the venture capital world. A great mix of industries and international coverage. I really enjoyed the Unicorn Bracket recently.
- And then of course, there are my tech-focused regulars:
Aside from the quick(ish) reads, longform articles from The Guardian, Longform.org and Brain Pickings also inspire me and end up adding to my ever growing Pocket list. I've resigned myself to always having more to read than time to read but in some ways it's comforting to know that there's never a dearth of reading material.