Google Reader Hack: Feed Thresholds

I love Google Reader, but it has one caveat: cognitive overload. It can consume a lot of time, especially if one subscribes to 40-50 feeds (like me). There's simply no way to keep up-to-date. The task of reading can be overwhelming, especially without proper management and hacks to increase your time effectiveness. That's why I am writing about a technique that I use to slim down my reading list: Feed Thresholds.

Create several tags, label them "Level1", "Level2", ..., "LevelN"
Tag the "must read" feeds as Level1, the "kind of important" feeds as Level2, and keep going down the list.
Set the default view to show only Level1 feeds.

Since the default view is Level1, you always keep up-to-date with the most important feeds without overloading yourself by filtering out all the extra crap. Then, as time permits, lower the threshold. Read Level2, Level3, etc.. The idea is to select only most important feeds now, so that when you're in a hurry, you don't have to scan the entire list and mentally select the important items.

For those Google Reader addicts out there, I hope this helps.

Comments

jerel

May 31, 2007 at 8:58 p.m.

Isn't this kind of common sense?