Meme: Who is in my feed list? [Gearfire Productivity]
I have just been “challenged” at Lorelle on Wordpress to post about who is in my feed list. I probably wouldn’t have written this a month ago, because my feed list was nothing to be proud of. I had over 120 individual subscriptions, many of them to large posting sites such as Digg, Reddit, and Del.icio.us, which posted upwards of 70 items a day each. Since then, I have drastically reduced my feed intake, cutting my subscriptions down to 50 and making the most frequently updated feed Lifehacker. Here are the most significant feeds on my list now. I do have 50, but many of them have a post frequency of well under 1/day, such as my Twitter feed.
LifeHacker - Currently my most frequently updating feed. Even though it is really a catcher feed, they do a really good job of finding unique content from hundreds of other sites that I don’t read.
Lifehack.org - Good general productivity and health articles.
Download Squad - cool new software and websites.
Giveaway of the Day - frequently posts good productivity software such as FusionDesk and ConceptDraw. I used to have Game Giveaway of the Day, but I didn’t download most of them.
Small Bites - highlights good and bad foods daily. I’m not on a diet or anything, but I enjoy discovering new foods.
Explosm.net - The only comic I read anymore. I unsubscribed from Daily Dilbert, but this comic is always funny.
Solution Watch - updated about once a month with a review of a web 2.0 app. Even with the bad post frequency, I keep it because the posts are high-quality and informative.
Copyblogger - I keep a couple blogging blogs to get tips for Gearfire, including Daily Blog Tips, Lorelle on Wordpress, and my favourite: Copyblogger.
Sizlopedia - interesting content, very similar to Digg, but less useless garbage.
Hate the Grind -similar in nature to JohnChowDotCom with very nice money-making ideas and other content.
The Ririan Project - good wellness, leadership, and health blog.
Zen Habits - a great GTD blog with useful, thought-provoking content.
The Simple Dollar - good personal finance advice on how to get out of or stay out of debt.
The Daily Saint -looks at the mind and spiritual aspects of productivity such as how you interact with others, sleep, self-confidence, etc.
How did I do this? Mostly by eliminating all “catcher feeds”; feeds which are collections of stuff from other websites. The only catcher feeds that I kept were Lifehacker and Lifehack.org, because they usually had relevant content. Frankly though, I just didn’t have the time to look at funny pictures and read about politics on Digg.com.
I also cut down on the folders. I combined a lot of stuff. Instead having one folder for comics, and one for urgent things such as news and Giveaway of The Day, I just put those all into one folder. Presently, I have 6 folders and 2 tags, and I usually filter through quickly in 10 minutes, starring items I want to read later. Then whenever I want to take a break from work, I just drop in on my starred section, and pick an article to read.
So what is on your feed list? Post a comment with your top 3 feeds that you couldn’t live without.
Original post here: Geoff R.
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