Taking a page out of Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero presentation, I considered my news reader habits. I think they mirror Mann’s suggestion for getting your inbox to zero. Okay, I realize email is harder to get to zero. Feeds aren’t usually addressed to you and don’t ever require a response or action. However, I take my feeds personally in that while I don’t ever have to respond, I usually have some type of response. I either:
- have no interest
- find it interesting and compelling and need to comment
- am inspired enough to write my own blog post
- think others would benefit and I either share or email the post to them
- consider it interesting but know that it will require more time to process
So given these responses I:
- skim over and it’s automatically marked as read (some consider this deleting)
- head over to the blog and make a comment
- link to it in a blog post
- hit the share button or email button
- star it and read it later
I also try to read my feeds 2 or 3 times a day. I remember a certain blogger (initials W.R.) who showed his reader in a presentation only to have oodles of unread posts appear from a fellow blogger in the audience. He was admittedly embarrassed.
So, grant it, email may be harder but for some people, their aggregator has become a challenge and almost as taxing as email. It shouldn’t be but if we’re interested in deep learning, it means spending a lot of time in the aggregator. For many of us, our aggregator is more important than email.
PS. my inbox is at 11.
[tags]merlinmann,inboxzero,43folders,rss[/tags]
Entries (RSS)
August 25th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Iagree with you about the importance of our aggregators!
I would add to your responses two more that I find to be very effective.
1. I use Google Reader so I have the ability to tag posts. So even though I may just skim the post initially, I tag it if it is relevant to a topic that I’m interested in. Then when I need it, I can quickly call up the post.
2. I drop and add feeds on a regular basis based on shared interests. Sometimes a blogger will dig deeply into a topic in which I have little interest, so I’ll drop that feed for a while and then pick it up again at a later date when our interests converge.
August 25th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Interesting connection between the inbox and news reader. I’ve been a huge fan of Merlin Mann and his inbox zero movement since reading Getting Things Done by David Allen.
Two thoughts come to mind regarding taming the news reader beast:
1) Apply the two-minute rule. If you can take action (read and react) on it in under 2 minutes, then do so. If not, then make an action out of it. No matter what, though, you may not leave it unread and in your inbox. There are plenty of long blog posts that I want to return to when I have the time. I’ve been using Google Reader’s “Star” feature for these posts. It doesn’t work 100% but is similar to my inbox zero approach.
2) Don’t handle things more than once. In the GTD world, that means papers in your meat space inbox should be picked up and a disposition given. You’re not supposed to put stuff back into the inbox. In the news reader version, I think that means you have to read the article, star it, share it, or whatever — but not leave it there (like the blogger WR did in your retelling).
August 27th, 2007 at 1:22 am
Was it a day quite recently when there were SEVENTY ONE unread posts from a vociferous Scot?
I believed him when he said he wanted time to savour them. Maybe I shouldn’t have… 
August 27th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Ewan,
In the interest of privacy I’ll not confirm your suggestion. (Who savors 71 posts anyway?)
September 14th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article News Feed Zero, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.