The last year has been a whirlwind of information gathering, research, study, and (of course) blogging.
The only way that I’ve been able to maintain a healthy pace and balance of consumption and production has been through scheduling, time management, and the awesomeness of RSS.
Google Reader has been my weapon of choice and still appears to be the best for what I do and how I have chosen to use it. If you don’t use it currently I’d suggest that you try it out. It’ll help you stay abreast of all those blogs that you read (and make sure to subscribe to ChurchCrunch!).
Here are 5 RSS Tips that have helped me stay afloat. I’d love to hear yours too!
- Actually use a RSS Reader (a good one). This is obvious but needs repeating. There are still so many people who don’t use one and click their bookmarks every morning. Sad.
- Learn the power of scanning content. You don’t have to read everything line-by-line. Learn to scan. The best is when you’ve realized that only certain things are truly valuable to you and are worth reading. Scanning is an absolute necessity.
- Organize your RSS Feeds. I have buckets of RSS feeds for certain types of content and blogs. I actually need to redo my organization again (and it’s worth coming back to it and refining your organizational strategy). Bucket ones into “must read” categories, “fun” reads, etc.
- Limit yourself. Be extremely judicial when it comes to subscribing. Admit that you don’t need to cover everything and you’ll be just fine. Less is truly more, especially for your own sanity’s sake.
- Find the influencers and subscribe just to them. There are a lot of blogs that just regurgitate content. I’m not really interested in that. Find the influencers, the ones creating the unique content and subscribe to them. Everyone else is just fluff.
What else you got that has helped you?
[Image from Mirko]
I'm Friar Don….And I am a bookmark clicker. *breaks down and cries*
HAHAHA!
Dude, you're the best.
Good stuff John. I also keep a "trial" folder. When I see a good post I don't subscribe to, sometimes I'll subscribe & put it in the "trial" folder. I don't scan those feeds as frequently. After a while if there's consistently good material in the blog, I'll move it into one of the other folders. If not, I unsubscribe.
Ooooooh. the trial folder. that's a good one too. i have one of those.
John, How big is your RSS feed?
Could you give us some examples of content you subscribe to?
I'm curious.
yes, examples of blog's/people that are worth your time please!
I learned to scan through my feeds a long time ago…now I scan through everything and I can't stop…makes school way too difficult…Good advice though
Hooray GooReader!
I think one area that I want to explore more is using twitter as my RSS feed. Letting others filter the content for you and then see what people are talking about. Not completely full proof yet but I think it has some possibilities.
I switched from Bloglines to Gooreader, and have to say I haven't had a preference, except that GR is a bit more stable.
Folders are important. I use one called "PTK" or People to Know that is more focused on building relationships than the content. It's been very useful.
I would add that learning how to *unsubscribe* is very important. If a feed is just adding to the noise, axing it will maintain your sanity.
Love Google reader. Though, I've found myself commenting and participating less than when I visited the actual sites. Some would say that's a good thing…
honestly…haven't thought about sorting