Build a reading dashboard

The case for using butter as a reading dashboard isn't "more places to scroll" — it's the opposite. Two feeds, filtered to the parts you actually read, on a new-tab page that opens once in the morning and again at lunch. Instead of being a permanent open tab in the background, the news lives on the surface that already opens itself every time you start a new task.

The build

Two feeds, one set of quick links, and a clock for context. Pomodoro sits this one out:

Step by step

1. Start fresh. E to edit; X out anything in the way.
2. Clock at top-left. 4 wide, 2 tall. Keep it lightweight — short date, no seconds. The clock is here for context, not focal weight.
3. Quick Links across the top. 8 wide, 2 tall. Replace the starter links with your reading stops — newsletter archives, blogs you actually return to, that one Substack. Hide host subtitle if your titles are already clear.
4. Hacker News on the left. 6 wide, 5 tall. Settings: pick a source — Front page for the curated set, Show HN for a quieter, more focused read, or New with a Minimum points floor of e.g. 50 if you'd rather see momentum-checked rather than algorithm-curated.
5. Inspiration on the right. 6 wide, 5 tall. Paste the URL of an Are.na channel you actually return to — a design board, a reading list, a moodboard. It pulls the channel's blocks as a quiet visual feed alongside your text one, so the dashboard isn't all headlines.
6. Esc . Done.

Why this is better than a feed reader

• It opens when you open a new tab. You don't have to remember to check it; it shows up in the path of every new task. Then it gets out of your way the moment you type a URL.
• Filters are sharp, not infinite scroll. Hacker News caps at 30 items and lets you set a points floor, so you sort with intention rather than algorithmic refresh-bait. Inspiration shows a fixed set of blocks from your channel, not an endless feed.
• Both refresh on a 5-minute cache. You can hammer the refresh icon all you want — fresh fetches only happen when the cache expires. So "refreshing" doesn't actually do anything new for ~5 minutes, which turns out to be a nice frequency forcing function.

Variants

• Two HN widgets, two flavours. Drop a second HN widget on the right instead of Inspiration — one on Front page, one on Show HN. Same site, two reads.
• Add Weather and skip Quick Links. If your reading hour is also your "should I take a walk" hour, the Weather widget with sunrise / sunset toggled on pulls double duty.

A small habit that pairs well

Open the reading dashboard once at the start of the day and once after lunch. Two reads, ten minutes each. Read what's interesting, close the tab, go do the work. The point isn't to keep up — it's to make checking in cheap enough that you stop reflexively scrolling elsewhere.