jonlee.ca

Ever check your RSS reader and see hundreds or thousands of unread articles? I know I have, and when I see that number I cringe because I feel like I have so much catching up to do.  Reading your RSS feeds should not feel like a chore — it should be something fun that you enjoy doing.  Afterall, these are feeds that you have chosen to subscribe to yourself!

If you are feeling overwhelmed, here are 7 tips to make reading RSS not feel like a chore!

1. Check Often
   This one is obvious, but by checking your RSS feeds at least 3 or 4 times a day, there is a lot less to read each time.
2. Use a Full Featured Dedicated RSS Reader
   Don’t just put RSS feeds on your Pageflakes or iGoogle homepage. Aside from the fact that can you see only a few feeds, many times when you open your browser you will immediately navigate to another page. Instead, use a full featured RSS reader. I recommend Google Reader (integrated with Gmail) since it is clean and offers efficient and time saving features described below.
3. Read Feeds One at a Time
   Seeing many unread articles at once can be overwhelming and you will probably tend to glaze over the whole bunch of them. Instead, read feeds one at a time so you might actually read all of the headlines.
4. Group Infrequent Feeds Together
   On the other hand, by grouping infrequent feeds together (i.e. under a common folder in Google Reader), you can save time and make reading more efficient. For example, since webcomics get updated about once a day, instead of clicking 10 separate feeds , I group all my webcomic feeds under a “Comics” folder.
5. Prioritize Your Feeds
   I also grouping feeds into a two main sections — those I read just for fun and those I like to stay on top of (the news). If I don’t have time, I simply save the former for later when I have more time instead of skimming over them! Another thing you can do is bookmark interesting articles you don’t have time to read now (or Star them in Google Reader).
6. Unsubscribe from Feeds You Never Read
   I subscribe to a lot of feeds but I find that there are certain feeds I always tend to skip unless I absolutely have nothing else to do. These clog up my feed reader and add to a staggering unread count. If there is something truly important I missed, I’m sure I’ll see it show up on another feed somewhere. And since you’re reading this right now, that means you shouldn’t unsubscribe from my feed.
7. Subscribe to Reddit, Unsubscribe from digg
   Up until a week ago, I have had digg as one of my RSS feeds. On a weekday, it is very likely to get 100-200 RSS articles from digg alone — making up more than all my other feeds combined. Not only is the sheer number of articles overwhelming, I find that a lot of the articles on there are crap for lack of a better term. It has become a sort of cesspool for ridiculous videos and spam — neither of which I care much for. To top it off, I tend to find that all of the few good articles on digg I have already read on reddit hours if not days earlier. So my suggestion is to subscribe to the more intelligent and worthwhile reddit feed and ditch digg altogether. (Note: possible bias because my site has been banned from digg).
   It might be useful to note that you can subscribe to individual sections of many social news sites so you only read stories from categories you’re interested in.

Do you feel overwhelmed by the number of unread articles in your RSS reader? You’re not alone. The number one reason people unsubscribe from a feed is because it has too many posts!

What are your tips for making RSS reading more fun?

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Efficiency. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.