How I Cut My Reading Time in Half Using AI and a Google Sheet

One automation. One spreadsheet. Hours saved every week.

If you’ve ever opened 15 tabs with the intention to read later… and then opened 15 more, this is for you.

I used to hoard pages — news stories, blog posts, Medium articles, think pieces, you name it. I saved them all.

Having 30 tabs open on my screen used to be the norm for me. And don’t even get me stared on the articles collecting dust in my bookmarks, saved in Pocket, or flagged “to read later.”

But the more I saved, the less I actually read.

So I built something to fix it.
A lightweight summarizer system.
Built in Make. Connected to Google Sheets. Powered by ChatGPT.

The full automation. Built in Make.com using no code.

The problem: too much info, not enough time

Most online content is bloated. I don’t need 2,000 words to understand a trend or idea. I just want the insights.

What I needed was:

• A way to scan high-signal content fast

• A low-friction workflow that wouldn’t break after 3 uses

• Something I could build without writing code

• A summarizer that could surface the key essence of an article and the takeaways worth remembering, without making me wade through 20 paragraphs to find them

The Solution: a simple scraper built with Make.com

Here’s how it works:

• I drop the article link into a Google Sheet.

• Make.com uses an HTTP module to grab the raw HTML from the page.

• Then a text parser strips out all the code and converts it into clean, readable text.

• That text gets sent to ChatGPT (via OpenAI), where a custom prompt turns it into a tight summary.

• Finally, the summary gets logged in the same Google Sheet.

Seconds after pasting a URL, I get a TLDR. No more 30 tabs. Now everything is kept neat and tidy in one spreadsheet.

One spreadsheet. One summary per article. All my saved reads in one clean, skimmable place.

How this cut my reading time in half

Before: I’d spend 5–10 minutes reading an article, digging for insights.
Now: I get what I need in under 30 seconds.

This system helps me quickly glance at the summary to decide whether an article deserves a full read. If something intrigues me, I’ll open the original and dive deeper.

Not everything online needs your full attention. This setup filters out the noise and flags the pieces worth exploring.

Want to try It?

I turned this into a free downloadable template.

You can:

• See how it works

• Customize it for your workflow

Have questions? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear how you use this.