Bruno Miranda's Notebook

Be honest with yourself, you shouldn’t be spending so much time reading feeds.

Yes, I know, you are thinking to yourself, why would I give up reading my feeds. I can’t do that. Yes you can. Don’t you want to be more productive?

Anyways, if you can’t drop them ‘cold turkey’ at least compromise. I used to spend 30-45 minutes each day reading my feeds, that is way too much time in week. I started to consider ways in which I could gain some of that time back. The first option and what I did for the first month of my experiment was to trim the feeds. Initially this worked out nicely, but after a week I realized I was missing a lot of important news from blogs I enjoyed. That was not acceptable, so I re-subscribed to the ones I enjoyed the most.

I then realized that most of my feeds were not terribly time sensitive. The next experiment revolved around limiting when and where I read my feeds. Basically devoting downtime and alternative devices for RSS reading. The first portion of the new regime was to read feeds when I am on-the-go such as waiting rooms, restrooms or during exercise, the iPhone + Google Reader makes this a snap.

Whatever items had been left over I would read once or twice a week sitting on the couch which watching TV. This normally took 30 minutes each time. This is working out perfectly, I don’t miss any of my favorite news, and still manage to save 3-4 hours a week which can be put to better use.