A most interesting topic. I have struggled with this same issue as well. I am not an academician either, but anything I come across on the web that I would like to read later I now simply send to my Instapaper queue.

I have now also a weekly recurring action in my task manager where it prompts me to spend half an hour three times a week to specifically read through my Instapaper articles.

By the way, while we are on the subject of Instapaper, I now sort my articles by oldest first. This way, I am not tempted to work with the newest additions first and let the old stuff sit there, ruminate, and possibly become irrelevant as time goes by