How to Manage Multiple Blog Feeds Simply

Blogs have simultaneously enriched and complicated my life. I follow so many of them that I can only function with the help of a feed reader. Unfortunately, it's so easy to subscribe to the multitude of promising blogs that my feeds list has grown out of control and I fear that I will grow a long grey beard before I can read everything that is begging for my attention. (This is an especially heinous fate as I am a woman who is not otherwise prone to growing facial hair.)

Today I am working on simplifying my life by cleaning up my Google Feed Reader, but will work for any reader. The point of this exercise is to stop reading things I don't care about. In order to take back control of my reader, I have a simple 3 part plan.

1) Create folders to categorize the feeds I subscribe to in my reader.

2) Put feeds that I trust, enjoy, and get something out of into the folders.

3) Let all other feeds stay in feed purgatory until they prove themselves.

If your blogs are not already in folders, consider breaking them up into categories like "business and finance", "entertainment and music", "local news", "food and travel" and "personal development". Sorting them by types will let you focus your reading time in the topics of most interest to you at the moment.

If you already have your feeds organized by folder, you are ahead of the game. Overachievers like you can create an additional folder titled "purgatory" to slide blogs on the bubble into. All new blog feed subscriptions should spend at least a week in purgatory before you add them to your rotating digital library.

A feed in purgatory is like a feed on house arrest. I still have my eye on them, but it is a skeptical eye. If they make me laugh or think or feel smarter and inspired, they will be promoted into a folder. If they disappoint or repeat or fall off the wagon and go on a long hiatus, they will be deleted from the reader.

Keep your feeds fresh by subscribing to new blogs. Subscribe, organize, read, love, grow tired, put in purgatory, delete, repeat. This method works for me and it will work for you.

Try it. If you are addicted to the internet like me, this may be your only chance win back an hour of your life for playing outside versus having your legs falling asleep at the computer chair.