It was back in November that I first discovered and subsequently wrote about the Headway app. Choosing to consume 15-minute book summaries rather than reading full-length books was a first experience for me, but I found it hugely rewarding. I’ve not completely done away with reading books from cover to cover but it has helped me understand key ideas in record time.
Continuing my thirst for knowledge, I’ve now installed the Uptime app. The reason for exploring an alternative yet similar app was because Headway is limited to books, and summaries are 15 minutes long. Uptime summarizes not only books but also courses, documentaries, and podcasts. And rather than compacting everything into 15 minutes, it serves up leaner five-minute nuggets, or what it calls ‘hacks’.
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This is part of a regular series of articles exploring the apps that we couldn’t live without. Read them all here.
I was eager to find out whether the broadening of media and the shortening of insights would lead to a watering down of understanding. I’m all for learning things quickly, but not at the cost of retaining knowledge. Read on to find out if it served up a positive experience or left me wanting more.
One of the best things about Uptime’s hacks is that they contain mixed media. I began by launching the ‘How to break up with your phone’ hack and was pleased to see a mixture of text, audio, video, and images. The mixture kept me interested through the five minutes and helped to keep my brain engaged in the task of learning. The varied content also helped me enjoy the insights, whether I was at home on my own or in public riding the bus.
With many of the hacks being written by the creators themselves, there’s an added level of authenticity and accuracy. Uptime claims this delivers unique insight you can’t get anywhere else. I can’t say I find this hugely convincing, given that I don’t know the authors or creators and, therefore, wouldn’t know if their voice was coming through. I also know that others might do a better job of summarizing content than the creators themselves.
Despite that, the level of quality is high. I particularly like how each hack centers around three insights. This provides the necessary structure to ground learning and help with memory recall. It felt much like a race with checkpoints along the way, which help you orient yourself and determine what progress you’re making.
Along with excellently curated insights, each hack also includes a ‘Take action’ section. I found this essential for taking the knowledge I was absorbing and putting it into practice within my life. For example, in the take action section of ‘The high 5 habit’ hack, I was encouraged to commit to giving myself a high-five first thing in the morning for five days in a row and to notice how I felt. This was an incredibly straightforward and easy-to-achieve action that has helped me cement the practice in reality.
One of my favorite features within the app is the spark cards. This tool lets you save specific insights from a hack and store them on a ‘board’. By curating these boards, I was able to refer back to them later. When I read a physical book, I always underline key sections and quotes that I want to remember. Spark cards are the digital equivalent of this and I found them very helpful indeed.
Uptime is available for free, although you’ll only get access to one daily hack. It’s worse than that, though, because Uptime chooses the hack for you. Not being able to decide my study option made the whole experience pretty pointless, in my opinion. Opting for premium is, therefore, verging on essential.
Premium provides unlimted insights from books, courses, documentaries, and podcasts, as well as exclusive content from top creators. Overall, users can pick from over 8,000 titles, with the library being added to all the time. The privilege costs $29.99/£29.99 per year or $3.99/£3.99 if you’d prefer to pay monthly. You can also take advantage of a one-week free trial before deciding.
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paulo.n.hatton@gmail.com (Paul Hatton)
