What Is Blinkist?
Blinkist is an executive summary app that gives you “the key ideas from bestselling nonfiction distilled by experts into bitesize text and audio.” It has an expanding library of over 3000 books (~750 hours of reading or listening).
Blinkist is an app (or website) that I personally use on a daily basis. It helps me unwind from the busy world surrounding me and broaden my horizons in as little as 10 minutes. 10, 15, 20 minutes is all it takes to read a summary of a great nonfiction book from some of the best authors in the world.
You might be thinking, Adrian, is a 15 minute summary of a 300-page book really enough? And that is a legit question.
What you get in a Blink (a book summary) is the most important takeaways authors wanted to convey to their readers. You get all the stuff without the fluff.
I use Blinkist the most when I’m waiting for someone or something, which is often. Let me hit you with some truly shocking statistics.
According to a Timex survey, Americans wait:
- on average of 20 minutes a day for the bus or train
- 32 minutes whenever they visit a doctor
- 28 minutes in security lines whenever they travel
- 21 minutes for a significant other to get ready to go out
- 13 hours annually waiting on hold for a customer service
- 38 hours each year waiting in traffic
- those living in Big cities wait in traffic more than 50 hours annually
= about 37 billion hours each year waiting in line somewhere.
And it continues. An average person spends 90 minutes a day on their phone. That’s 23 days a year or 5 YEARS of our lives! Five freakin’ years!
So why not make these ridiculous amounts of time go to something that will elevate you?
In 90 minutes you can read through six 15 minute Blinks.
You could potentially become an expert in a field just through reading Blinks and full-length books of course, without going to college.
You might like also Study Motivation – Awesome Advice, Quotes And Phone Wallpapers
Why Do I Like It?
There’s plenty to like about Blinkist and the biggest thing for me is its range of books. Almost all of my favorite authors are represented by at least one book of theirs and most of the big shots have several if not all their books on Blinkist. You can easily browse through categories or easily search for authors, titles or keywords. With over 3000 titles, you’ll find something interesting at all times.
The second thing I like about Blinkist is a great app. It’s slick and fast and has options to save Blinks for later and even highlight sentences or whole passages. After you finish a Blink, you’ll see your Blink counter – how many Blinks you’ve finished.
The third feature I like is the option to listen to Blinks. I use this all the time when I’m out for a run. The narrators are great at their jobs. You can even speed it up if you want to go through Blinks faster. The option to listen offline comes in handy as well.
The fourth thing I like and it’s the one you can avail of for free each day is Your Daily Pick feature. It’s basically a free Blink you get each day even if you’re not a paying customer. The only downside is that it is a random book they cover which might be a good or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.
Read this popular post 15 Reasons Why You Should Get A Mentor ASAP
If you’re only into let’s say psychology books and you get a Daily Pick that’s a marketing or leadership book that might actually be a good thing for you as you could broaden your horizons and get interested in a completely different field of interest. I love to mix up my reading list.
Curated lists is another beautiful feature that helps you find the NY Times Bestsellers picks, Bill Gates’ favorite reads, top 13 books recommended on the Tim Ferriss Show among dozens of other lists.
What I Don’t Like About Blinkist
To be honest, there’s not much I don’t like. I mean, I’m using this app on a daily basis for more than half a year and the only thing I can really mention here that is a downside is that some of the books I wanted to read were missing.
No biggy, I just buy them somewhere else and that’s it.
Why not read our popular post Is It Possible To Ever Be Content?
Is It Worth The Money?
As you can see above, the prices are more than affordable, especially if you opt-in for yearly membership as I did. For a price of less than one (1) book, you get an almost infinite resource. You can get 20% off here.
And then there’s also the free trial. You can use this period to see if Blinkist is for you or you prefer to read full-sized books or maybe not read at all.
Example Of A Blink
I’m using Michael Hyatt’s “Your Best Year Ever”. This is the page you’ll see first. It gives you the option to read or listen to the Blink. Or you can do both.
Then there’s the duration of the Blink and how many Blinks there are. Next up is the description and who is this book for plus a short author bio.
This is the introduction page that tells you what you’ll find in the Blink.
After all the Blinks comes the final summary that contains:
- key messages
- feedback
- suggested reading
- options to favorite the title, buy it on Amazon or suggest it to a friend.
Blinkist Alternatives
Instaread
Instaread has more than 1000 titles and provides The New York Times Magazine articles which I enjoy to read. Summaries are written by professional journalists and each Instaread goes through the hands of at least 15 people before being released. The app is only available on iOS though. Boooo!
StoryShots
StoryShots has a limited library but such a beautiful interface. Plus, there are slick animations if you’re a visual learner and I love them. It also adds new books every week so that you always have new content to consume.
StoryShots Gallery 
StoryShots Gallery 
StoryShots Gallery
Other people read our Quick Guide To Ikigai And How It Can Benefit You as well.
Reading Books
You can always simply read books. I still do. Blinkist doesn’t completely substitute reading full-length material. If there’s a Blink I’d like to expand my knowledge on, I buy the book straight from the app on Amazon.
The amount of time and money you save is impressive though. There are just too many books I’m interested in and so little time. And so many books, frankly, do not deserve 2 -20 hours of our time to read them.
Do yourself a favor, try any of the three apps I’ve listed and start reading. All of them offer free plans and even if you buy a monthly or yearly plan, you still save a boatload full of money.
Get your 20% discount for Blinkist here.
Blinkist FAQ
It has more than 10 million users.
There’s a 7-day free trial and a Daily Pick that’s always free but otherwise, it’s a paid app. Get 20% off the full price here.
It costs $6.67 monthly if you pay annually or $12.99 monthly if you pay every month. See more here.
For me, it is without a doubt worth it. The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
I love Instaread and StoryShots.
You can get 20% off the full price here.
Post them below in the comments.
