benzado

Google Reader

iamachilles:

I’d like to add a couple more blogs on my reading list.  What are your favorite blogs to follow?

Oh no! Don’t fall into this trap.

The good thing about Google Reader is that it neatly organizes posts you haven’t read yet. You don’t have to visit a bunch of sites and re-read items before realizing you’ve already seen them before.

The bad thing about Google Reader is that it neatly organizes posts you haven’t read yet. It becomes another inbox. Another source of stuff that piles up if you don’t deal with it regularly. At some point in the future you will be unable to keep up for a few days and return to find a huge number of unread items. Then the debate: do you try to catch up (hint: you can’t) or hit Mark All Read, losing sleep over the thought that maybe you missed something really great buried in there.

Don’t add subscriptions for the sake of adding subscriptions. Your time is more valuable than that. You should be trying to simplify, economize, optimize. Identify sites you don’t have to read and unsubscribe. Less is more.