This system is the entire reason I switched to RSS (first with NetNewsWire, now Google Reader) in the first place. I found myself wasting an incredible amount of time just reloading a website to see if anything's new, processing the page, trying to figure out which articles I might have already read, etc.
Now, in Google Reader, I typically use the "all items" feed and blast through the list, only looking at the headlines. If something interests me, I'll either hit "s" to star it (meaning read later, not now), read it inline (if it's a full-text feed) or middle-click it to put it in a tab and read as soon as I'm done scanning.
If there's under 100 items, it probably only takes me about 5 minutes to go through them. If there are more, I'll typically load up the most post-heavy blogs (which I keep in a folder) and speed through them, then switch over to all feeds and read through them.
My only problem with my current system is that I check Google Reader way more often than I should - but I'm generally fairly happy with how I do it.
This is basically my system. I never hit anything but the all-items feed and I'm pretty strict about leaving zero unread before I navigate away so I can't just pop in for a quick read unless I've got at least 15 minutes to kill. I breeze past most items and middle-click anything interesting that's longer than a screenful.
The downside is I end up having a lot of open tabs with things I want to read.
I only middle-click things that immediately pique my curiosity or that are time-sensitive. If it's something long or that I can read later, it goes into the starred bin.
What's wound up happening is that I have (I think - Google doesn't give an exact count) several thousand starred items in that list that I have yet to read through. I used to feel pressured about this, but I've recently stopped worrying about it. If there's something important I want to come back to later, I can search through it, and if I didn't read it, obviously it can't have been that important.
Comments
This system is the entire reason I switched to RSS (first with NetNewsWire, now Google Reader) in the first place. I found myself wasting an incredible amount of time just reloading a website to see if anything's new, processing the page, trying to figure out which articles I might have already read, etc.
Now, in Google Reader, I typically use the "all items" feed and blast through the list, only looking at the headlines. If something interests me, I'll either hit "s" to star it (meaning read later, not now), read it inline (if it's a full-text feed) or middle-click it to put it in a tab and read as soon as I'm done scanning.
If there's under 100 items, it probably only takes me about 5 minutes to go through them. If there are more, I'll typically load up the most post-heavy blogs (which I keep in a folder) and speed through them, then switch over to all feeds and read through them.
My only problem with my current system is that I check Google Reader way more often than I should - but I'm generally fairly happy with how I do it.
<AOL>
This is basically my system. I never hit anything but the all-items feed and I'm pretty strict about leaving zero unread before I navigate away so I can't just pop in for a quick read unless I've got at least 15 minutes to kill. I breeze past most items and middle-click anything interesting that's longer than a screenful.
The downside is I end up having a lot of open tabs with things I want to read.
I'm very aggressive about starring things.
I only middle-click things that immediately pique my curiosity or that are time-sensitive. If it's something long or that I can read later, it goes into the starred bin.
What's wound up happening is that I have (I think - Google doesn't give an exact count) several thousand starred items in that list that I have yet to read through. I used to feel pressured about this, but I've recently stopped worrying about it. If there's something important I want to come back to later, I can search through it, and if I didn't read it, obviously it can't have been that important.