If you have ever tried to manage 100+ feeds, you know it requires a concentrated effort to prevent them from becoming overwhelming. Below I describe my process for managing 703 feeds (and growing).
I have a total of 34 folders in Google Reader that each feed fits into. The middle 32 are categories you might expect like pop news, local, info-viz, sports, science, etc., but it is the two folders on either end that are most important.
Many of the 703 feeds are only occasionally interesting, so it is important that I organize the feeds in such a way that I can quickly skip through the least important feeds when the number of unread items becomes overwhelming. And if I become extremely rushed, I need to be able to quickly pick out only the very best feeds.
The top folder is called "always". These are the select few blogs that have earned my trust as consistently interesting and I read (or at least look at) every post. I will share these feeds with you next week. (Some can be found on the right pane of this blog.)
The bottom folder is called "occasionally" and it contains feeds like TechCrunch, BoingBoing, and Andrew Sullivan that post often but only occasionally interest me. The bulk of the new items come from this folder and a lot of times I will ignore them all with a swift click of the "mark all as read" button.
You might wonder, if you are going to ignore these feeds most of the time, why not unsubscribe? With each feed I have my reasons. For example, I have Kanye West's blog in the folder because I do not normally feel like reading him except for the rare occasion when I am in a Kanye mood.
You might wonder, if you are going to ignore these feeds most of the time, why not unsubscribe? With each feed I have my reasons. For example, I have Kanye West's blog in the folder because I do not normally feel like reading him except for the rare occasion when I am in a Kanye mood.
My normal reading process goes something like this: I log into Google Reader and first look at the total count of new items. If it is too high (say over 500) I will immediately open the "occasionally" folder and mark all as read. Next, I will see which of the middle 32 folders have the most new items. If it is a count above, say, 30, I will open that folder and browse for interesting posts, then mark the remaining as read. After I have the middle 32 folders down to a manageable size, I will turn my attention to the "always" folder and go through each new item. Finally, now that I have my "always" and "occasionally" folders cleaned out and the middle 32 folders down to a manageable size, I will open all items (button in the top part of the navigation pane) and sift through the rest. If I come across an item that I would like to come back to later, I place a "star" on that item.
My reading times are sporadic, but I usually like to start my mornings with Google Reader. According to RescueTime data, I spend about 35 minutes per day in Google Reader, but I think this is an understatement. I am guessing it is closer to an hour or 90 minutes. Either way you see that having a lot of feeds does not have to require a lot of time. I think it is an incredibly efficient means of gathering information, and in fact one of the first posts on this blog was about how Google Reader has changed my life. (Back then, I *only* had 387 feeds.)
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You might wonder, how does one come to amass 703 feeds? Does he subscribe to every blog he has ever visited? I think I am actually fairly selective with blogs. I will not subscribe to a blog without first browsing the front page and learning about the author(s). And, once subscribed, if I find that the posts are too hit or miss, I will either unsubscribe or move the feed to the dreaded "occasionally" folder.
There are two primary reasons why I am subscribed to 703 feeds: 1. some of the blogs are inactive but I choose not to unsubscribe in case they become active again (there is 0 cost in subscribing to a feed that never updates), and 2. many of the feeds are not blogs. About 50 of the feeds are Google Alerts, notifying me whenever something new appears on the web with a given search term. Other feeds are for news, radio, TV, Twitter, and various other web sites. I use Google Reader as my everything aggregator. I do not do a lot of web browsing because everything comes to Google Reader.
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By this time next year I will probably have over 1,000 feeds, but all the better, I say.
My reading times are sporadic, but I usually like to start my mornings with Google Reader. According to RescueTime data, I spend about 35 minutes per day in Google Reader, but I think this is an understatement. I am guessing it is closer to an hour or 90 minutes. Either way you see that having a lot of feeds does not have to require a lot of time. I think it is an incredibly efficient means of gathering information, and in fact one of the first posts on this blog was about how Google Reader has changed my life. (Back then, I *only* had 387 feeds.)
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You might wonder, how does one come to amass 703 feeds? Does he subscribe to every blog he has ever visited? I think I am actually fairly selective with blogs. I will not subscribe to a blog without first browsing the front page and learning about the author(s). And, once subscribed, if I find that the posts are too hit or miss, I will either unsubscribe or move the feed to the dreaded "occasionally" folder.
There are two primary reasons why I am subscribed to 703 feeds: 1. some of the blogs are inactive but I choose not to unsubscribe in case they become active again (there is 0 cost in subscribing to a feed that never updates), and 2. many of the feeds are not blogs. About 50 of the feeds are Google Alerts, notifying me whenever something new appears on the web with a given search term. Other feeds are for news, radio, TV, Twitter, and various other web sites. I use Google Reader as my everything aggregator. I do not do a lot of web browsing because everything comes to Google Reader.
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By this time next year I will probably have over 1,000 feeds, but all the better, I say.
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Addendum: The top 21 of my 703 feeds
