If your reader is anything like mine, it simply explodes during periods of unavoidable delay (mainly while I’m at work).
I leave with an easy couple hundred posts, but by the time I’m back my reader announces not a number but “1000+” behind “All Items”.
As such, I’ve taken to developing systems for dealing with reader overload.
I say “systems”, for I have several.
System 1 involves starting at the top and working my way down, reading every article in every folder. This is what I did at first–and what I quickly decided was unsustainable. I simply cannot read that much, and it leaves the poor “Younger Bloggers” in the last folder to sit in oblivion for what must seem to a youngster to be forever.
Enter System 2. In this system, I randomly select folders and scroll through posts until I find one that looks interesting. I read that, mark it as read, and continue scrolling. The problem with this approach is that I keep finding articles that I want to read eventually but don’t feel that I have time to read now. These are generally those posts that exceed the golden word count of blogging (500 words). Then, I end up scrolling through those same posts interminably. Very frustrating.
Which is why System 3 is at an advantage. With system 3, I read everything that has been written in the past 24 hours and one further article before moving on to the next folder. This has the theoretical advantage of not allowing me to get further behind–but still risks missing the bottom folders due to time constraints.
System 4 ensures that I get to all my folders. I simply read as many articles as are necessary to reduce my folder count to a multiple of five before moving along to the next folder. This means that folders with fewer posts (“People I know”, for example, or “2012-11-Comments”) get read all the way through, while folders with lots of posts (“News”) are barely skimmed. This is probably my favorite method except that it has gotten so boring to have all those fives and zeros on the ends of things.
That’s why System 5 is currently my preferred route. In this system, I choose an arbitrary number (not 5) to be my divisor. So, if I have chosen “8” (as I did immediately before beginning this post), acceptable ending post counts could be 40, 160, 144, or 24; but not 38. The next time I read through (possibly in the same sitting, possibly on another occasion), I choose a new number. This system has the same disadvantage as System 4, but with the added advantage of regular recitation of my times tables (which are admittedly rather rusty.)
Of course, the most effective system would probably be to subscribe to fewer feeds–but with so much to read each day, who has time to do that?
So tell me (have you ever noticed how often I use “so tell me”?), do you have a system for reading your reader? Please tell me about it–I love adding new systems!
Wow, that is a lot! When I have time, I like to do #1 — just start with the first one and read through til the end. When time is short, I skim through the ones I don’t usually comment on, like “big name” bloggers (who gets tons of comments without me), LOL catz, decorating or craft blogs. I might comment on those occasionally, but I don’t regularly and don’t even read every word of every post on them — I just skim through and see if there’s anything interesting.
There are some blogging friends whose posts I comment on almost every day, so often I save those for when I have more time, or just take them one or two at a time. I leave my e-mail, Facebook, and Google Reader open most of the day. My main computer time is mornings after breakfast, but I’m in and out through the day. And now with a TouchPad, I can look at posts a little bit while we’re watching TV as a family (depending on what’s on and how much concentration it needs).
I open posts and leave them sitting on my computer until I have time to read through and comment. Actually, after your post a few months (?) back about cleaning out your reader, I did the same. I only subscribe to those I actually have time to read. And I make sure I know them, leave comments and track with their lives.
I’m a “quality over quantity” Google Reader Subscriber. Still, I have quite a few blogs I want to follow. But, as you say, there still exists the time constraints. I just figure I’ll do my best and keep track of a handful and glean and learn from them and hope the others understand I’m a friendly person with three small children at home.
What? The golden word count of blogging is 500 words? Oh my goodness, why didn’t somebody ever tell me that. I fail miserably in that department!!! ;-)
Oh, well, I guess I’ll keep on writing like I always do, since first and foremost, my blog is simply my own personal journal. Who needs rules for that? ;-)
A 500 word limit? Who knew? Certainly not I!
How about this: I don’t even use a reader! I just read posts the old fashioned way–by actually visiting the blogs I like! :-)
I was thinking about this post more last night, and I realized that I, too, used a system for a while. I’ve since abandoned it, and now my perusal of my reader is random at best. But if I were to try to be organized again, I would go back to this. It is simply to create 7 folders, one for each day of the week, and divide all the blogs I follow into those folders. Then, when it’s Tuesday’s turn, I read what is in that folder. The rule is: I cannot move to a different folder until I finish that day’s folder…but if I finish all of Tuesday, for example, I can jump to any other day I like. This was good because it ensured that at least once a week, I visited all the sites. But to tell you the truth, I wasn’t very disciplined with it. :)