I basically have two modes, hunt and eat. When I'm at my computer, I pull in the list of HN titles via RSS. I go through the list (just titles, no upvote numbers, rankings, or other brain hackery) and select the ones I'm actually interested in. I pop those open as tabs.
Once I have the articles I want, I quickly go through them in a sorting cycle. Weird games or apps I might take a quick look at. Paywalls get busted down, bypassed, or ignored. The articles I'm interested in reading go into Pocket using the browser extension.
When I'm out and about or lying around, I read articles using the Pocket app. I have the articles I want in front of me and so my brain isn't looking for more quick hits. Completing articles is the hit in that context. Actually, I pump most of the articles into my head as audio, so I can do laundry or walk around or cook. That's when I get most of them read, plus books and such.
Might be overengineered but it works for me. According to Pocket, I read over 8 million words last year. I'm actually thinking of pulling back a bit as there are dcreasing returns. Not sure how it counts words, as that seems like a lot, but there's also a ton I read that isn't in Pocket.