Tips for Spending Less Time Reading Blogs

Do you find yourself spending too much time on the internet reading blogs and catching up on message boards? If you think you need to cut back on the amount of time you spend reading blogs and visiting message boards you probably do. Here are some tips and questions to ask yourself as you begin to cut back. Many of these ideas can also apply to email lists.

One way to cut back on the amount of time you spend visiting blogs and message boards is to cut back on the number of sites you visit. Here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding if you should delete a website from your bookmarks.

Will this person notice or care if I stop visiting? If you stop reading your daughter's blog, she will probably notice. It's okay to keep reading blogs of close friends and family members you want to keep tabs on. On the other hand, people you don't know if real life, sites where you are lurking, and in most cases, all message boards don't care and won't notice if you stop visiting their sites.

Does reading this blog increase or improve my personal relationships? For a blog to increase or improve your personal relationships, you have to have a personal relationship to begin with. If you don't even know the person writing the blog, consider cutting that one out. Blogs are a great way to keep in touch with friends and family members over long distances though. Any blog that helps you do that should stay in your list.

Does this website or blog enrich my life? Are you actually getting anything out of visiting this website? Do you frequently use the ideas and tips you find there? Or are you just visiting the website as a distraction, reading the same things you already know, or wasting time? If it is a website where you frequently find new ideas and inspiration you are implementing in and enriching your life with, then by all means keep visiting. However, if you are just visiting because you are bored, or just reading the same-old chit chat among message board posters, maybe it's time to cut that site out of your life.

Once you have pared down your list of bookmarks as much as you can, here are some tips for spending less time visiting the remaining websites.

Don't check every day (or multiple times a day). How many times a day do you click on a blog just to "check" if it's been updated - and there are no new posts? Limit yourself to checking blogs once a day, or once every few days. Don't click on it just because you are bored and want to see if there are any new posts in a forum.

Use an RSS feed. Setting up an RSS feed, such as Google Reader, will allow you to view any new posts on the blogs or news websites you subscribe to. No more clicking on each blog in your list just to see that there are no new updates. These programs are a great timesaver. Once you've cut out all the unnecessary stuff you can have everything you want to read in one handy place.

Revisit. If you are constantly skipping over posts from a certain site in your RSS feed, or if something just doesn't interest you any more, go back and delete it. You should also visit your list of bookmarked websites and ask yourself the above questions every few months or so, since you are probably constantly adding to the list.

Still spending too much time on the computer? Check out my article, "Tips for Spending Less Tim on the Internet."