How to Keep Your Feed Subscriptions at a Manageable Level
If you’re a blogger, you probably have a feed subscription list longer than the Boston marathon and more daunting than the Iron Man. Some bloggers have over 300 subscriptions. They try to read through more than 1,000 entries (and the hits just keep coming…).There’s always one more new blog to check out, one more link to click, one more reading session to catch up on. What if you missed the latest hot post? What if you passed over valuable, life-changing advice?Okay, right. And what if your feed reader grew into a monster, reared up and swallowed you whole? It just might, if you don’t get it under control.
My own feed reader contains about 100 subscriptions, give or take a few. My problem is curiosity. I’m far too inquisitive for my own good. I also have that “missed opportunity” fear as well. I collect feed subscriptions because:
- I like the blogger, the blog, or the style of writing
- I’m keeping an eye on the competition
- I’m keeping an eye open because I want to BE the competition
- I’m learning something valuable from the content
- I find the blog a good place to comment and interact
But recently, my eyes have been sliding down my feed reader automatically. I skim the headlines, scan the entries, maybe drop a star marker or two, and I’m gone. I’m not reading, really. I’m not absorbing what people are offering. I don’t even come back to the posts I’ve marked to read later.
The last time I checked, reading blogs pays squat. Zilch. Zero. It’s educational at times and entertaining at others, but it doesn’t directly bring in revenue.
The long-term potential is there, though. By reading good, solid content, I can improve myself, my business or my strategies towards success. If I can’t focus on content that gets me there, though, then all my efforts are wasted.
It’s time for housecleaning. And if your list is like mine, then it might be time for you to do some cleanup, too. Here’s how:
- Give each new blog subscription two weeks to make it or break it. If you’ve skimmed and scanned or clicked “mark as read” more often than you’ve actually read the posts or commented on the blog, then it’s time to unsubscribe.
- Be picky. When you get ready to clean up your feed reader, hold your standards to a high level. A blog that doesn’t make the cut for quality gets cut out. Period.
- Every blog on your feed reader that has nothing marked or starred is a goner. If the writer can’t make you want to mark a post to come back to in the future, the blog isn’t worthy of your attention.
- Each blog that just spits out what other people write about isn’t worth your time. Get the information from the first person who said it, not the 10th who threw it back up into the Internet. Copycats suck.
- A blogger that produces poorly written content (you wouldn’t believe how many there are) shouldn’t make it past day three on your two-week test – especially if it’s a business blog.
- A blog that isn’t mentioned by other bloggers isn’t really worth your attention either. On the other hand, be generous. New blogs crop up every day. They take time to be discovered, prove their worth and build up a good readership, so be forgiving.
- Don’t keep subscriptions to blogs that you would be ashamed to link to in the first place. Dirty little secrets are best kept behind closed doors and not in your feed reader.
- Every blog that doesn’t benefit you or your business shouldn’t be on your subscription list. Content has to educate, inform and entertain. It has to give the reader something to take away.
In all honesty, blog content is a free gift to readers. Are the blogs you’re reading like Great Aunt Martha’s green and purple oversized sweaters? Or are they more like tailored suits that fit you just right?
Think, too – if you took all the time you spent reading and invested it into your own content, your business or yourself, what sort of difference would that make towards your success?
Probably a huge one.
So resist temptation and be merciless. Cut back and cut out. Then breathe. It’s a good feeling. How’s that for a start?
12 Responses to “How to Keep Your Feed Subscriptions at a Manageable Level”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Go ahead. Leave a Comment!
-
Affiliate Program
-
James Is Reading…
-
Social Hookups
As Seen In…
Overheard on the Web
MwP is Powered by…
I have been thinking along these lines for some time, James, and I’ve started to pare down my subscriptions using some of the criteria you mention. My main problem is subscribing to new writing blogs, because I am almost always interested in them. Of late, I’ve been getting more ruthless, though. I subscribe in Netvibes so it’s easy to look back at the last 10-20 titles and see which ones I stopped to read and which ones I skimmed over. Great post.
Sharon Hurley Hall’s last blog post..7 Essential Tools For The 21st Century Writer
@ Sharon – Heh, I think all writers are going to say it’s a major problem for them, too. Curiosity kills the cat. Plus, you and I tend to enjoy being sociable and frequent many blogs just because we like the people, so that doesn’t work in our favor either.
What’d you use before Netvibes? Better than Google Reader?
I used Google Reader, and my favorite thing was the starring feature, but I like the way I can get an at a glance view of several blogs with Netvibes.
I have tabs for writing blogs (4 of them!), blogs about blogging, jobs, friends’ blogs and blogs where I post regularly – and of course, my own blogs. It makes it easy for me to check when a post I’ve written has gone live and to see how it looks. If I’m in a rush, I skim through the jobs feeds and ignore the others.
Netvibes isn’t perfect – it has a habit of refreshing the unread numbers so that things I’ve read come up as unread – but Google Reader, my second fave, wasn’t perfect either.
Sharon Hurley Hall’s last blog post..7 Essential Tools For The 21st Century Writer
Indeed. I’ve been frustrated at a couple of things with Google reader (though I love all things Google and really shouldn’t complain). I’ve always wanted to be able to read a post and instead of starring it, mark it as unread.
I might check out that Netvibes (oooh shiny new toy for me!) and see if I like it better.
Anyone else have a good reader that does it all?
You can mark posts unread in Google. It’s somewhere down near the bottom of the post. There’s a tick for ‘read’ and if you click on it, it becomes unread. I love all things Google, too
Sharon Hurley Hall’s last blog post..7 Essential Tools For The 21st Century Writer
9. If you’re not following through and using the advice you read on a blog, why stay subscribed?
Clear out clutter = focus on follow through.
Dave Navarro – Million Dollar Leverage’s last blog post..How To Double Your Sales (Over And Over Again)
“The last time I checked, reading blogs pays squat. Zilch. Zero. It’s educational at times and entertaining at others, but it doesn’t directly bring in revenue.”
True–everything we do has to be run through an ROI (return on investment) filler to see if it deserves the amount of time we give it.
That said, there are some great blogs I read regularly that do inspire me–I keep them to a minimum and won’t add any unless they’re really, really worth it.
I like Tim Ferriss’ (4 Hour Workweek author) approach: I read an interview of his at Problogger where he said he doesn’t subscribe to any feeds; he has a handful of blogs that he keeps up with by going directly to the sites about twice a week.
I follow that approach too–saves a lot of time while still letting you gain the quality info your favorite blogs provide you.
Jesse Hines’s last blog post..Be Precise Both in Your Writing and Use of Time
I am proud to say that there are the grand total of two feeds in my reader: my own, just to see what my readers are seeing, and a news alert for one of my clients that is so frequent it’s easier than cluttering up my inbox.
The benefit that I do see of more blogs in my reader is that I can often read things in time to respond to them on my own blog. So if I wanted to talk smack about you, James, I could do it in a timely manner. At the same time, the same end could be (and often does) get achieved by doing it a few days later. I have to remind myself that people aren’t waiting around with bated breath to hear what I have to say about Brian Clark’s most recent piece.
Naomi Dunford’s last blog post..Marketing Your Blog To Advertisers
I have 73 feeds at the moment and track them with iGoogle. However, I don’t see a need to cut any of my feeds unless I never find anything good on it.
http://profreelancing.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10001/feeds.jpg
As you can see in the picture, I keep my favorites at the tops and the others end up below the fold. However, since a link turns purple whenever I click on it…I know which ones I’ve missed and might want to revisit later.
Chad | ProFreelancing’s last blog post..Make Your Inexperience Sell
@ Dave – I wrote this post because I realized the trouble, and I knew exactly how to solve my problems. That does not mean I follow my own advice all the time
@ Jesse – Exactly. Maximize the R in ROI by cutting down on the I.
@ Naomi – I’d like to see what you have to say about Brian, hehehe. As for smack, I think you’re doing a lovely job.
@ Chad – Hm… organizing that way instead of alphabetically is a plus. Agreed.
I’m glad all of you (minus Naomi, who can’t get with technology) have us in your reader and that we make the cut. I return the favor.
Have to. Otherwise I couldn’t go comment whoring
I subscribe to 126 feeds right now and don’t have any problem getting through them daily. However, I don’t necessarily read all of them – many don’t publish every day, and quite often I just look at a headline and decide its not of interest. That doesn’t cause me to delete the blog though: next week or next month I might be interested in what they are writing.
I also use iGoogle and divide into 13 categories