Saturday, Jan 5, 2008
Too many feeds? Ration your feed subscriptions!
Too many feeds on your list? Is your daily read eating up all too much of your day? Then dole your feeds out in small bite-sized rations!!!
I read feeds to keep up with the industry, as well as with the community and my friends. So, when I moved 1500 miles away from the local community I enjoyed seeing at PhillyCHI events, it was important I get back into "readin’ mah feeds".
However, as a feed junkie, I tend to collect large numbers of interesting reads (inbetween periodic culls). Definitely, I watch too many to check on anyone day.
In the past, I grouped my feeds by subject: business, marketing, ia/design, and web dev. That worked pretty well, and I could ignore huge tracts of RSS real estate based on mood, time, or interest.
And, sometimes, I don’t really care. I’ll check a couple of websites and then ignore the feed universe for weeks at a time.
But, if I want to keep up with everyone all (or most) the time and not blow chunks of each day in my RSS reader, then I need a good way to ration what I read every day.
A screenshot of Newsgator where I created a folder for each day of the week, each with an equal number of feeds.
So, instead of grouping my feeds by subject, I rationed them evenly by days of the work week. To keep the daily read minimal, I split them across two work weeks (10 days, instead of five).
I segregated a small set of daily reads into an "everyday" folder.
I’ve been using this method since Wednesday, and so far, it’s fantastic. I feel like I’m keeping up with everyone, and my daily update takes about 15 minutes. Perfect timing for waking up with my morning coffee.
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