I was feeling over-whelmed by the number of feeds I was trying to read, so this past week I went through my subscriptions and reduced the total number by 38%. That amounted to eliminating about 200 feeds.  This reduction of numbers was my first step in trying to gain control again.

Second, I arranged my general blog feeds in groups that make it easier to read those I deem most important.  I created three groups:

Group 1 – Those blogs that I read the most and wish to keep close tabs on.  I will read all of these posts.;
Group 2 – Those blogs that I often find enjoyable but don’t feel I have to read every post in depth (I scan these post and read the ones that catch my attention); and
Group 3 – Those blogs that I will consider as I have time.  If there is no time these are the first I mark all-read without reading them.

Initially the placement of feeds in the above groups was totally subjective.  But, I’m working on a grading method to allow the promotion of good blogs from Group 3 to Group 2 and to Group 1 over a period of time.  I would also like to be able to demote poor blogs.  I don’t have all the details of this worked out yet. 

Third, I’ve set up special topic groups such as “Apple Related”, “Political”, “Computer Hardware”, “Computer Software”, “World News”, etc. to allow me to focus my reading interest quickly on related feeds.  Related feeds were placed into these groups and it  allows quick marking of similar feeds as “all-read” if I don’t have time or interest to review them at the moment.

Have a special topic group works especially well for one special group I’ve set up called the “Maximum Post Group.”  This group includes those sites who do 20 or more posts per day.  I’m sure you can name a few I’ve included in this group.  I didn’t want to unsubscribe from these sites because I enjoy browsing them when I have time.  But, when they publish so many posts I can’t always keep up with them every day.  So when I open my reader and this group says for example 300+ new posts…they’ll get marked “all-read” without me ever looking back!

So far these simple changes have made it much easier to manage my feed subscriptions.  I don’t feel as overwhelmed and I believe i’m more focused on those topics that are of the highest interest to me.

As a side note, I use NetNewsWire as my main subscription feed reader. 

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