Simplify: 7 Guiding Principles to Help Anyone Declutter Their Home and Life

Organizing Your Feed Reader

source: pappalicious

source: pappalicious

Yesterday many of you shared your favorite organizing blogs in the comments of the Question of the Day post, and I thought as a follow-up to that and my post about decluttering your feed reader, it would be good to talk about organizing your feeds

If you use a feed reader, chances are you’ve opened it one day to realize that it had become overwhelming and stressful rather than an enjoyable, relaxing way to spend your time. Maybe you purged all your feeds and started from scratch or just started weeding out the ones that really weren’t doing much except contributing to the unread post count.

But the fact remains that there are a ton of great blogs out there, and it can be hard to keep your subscriptions down to a level that you can easily read in one sitting a day. If you’re a blogger yourself, you may feel like you need to be subscribed to other blogs in your niche for networking and to stay on top of the trends.

The easiest way to organize your feeds, as several people mentioned in the comments of the first feed reader post, is to use folders or categories (depending on your feedreader). For example, I have Blogging, Personal (those that I read just because I love them), Organizing and Home Decorating categories in my reader. I could break these down even further by category (and I may one day), but for now it’s working.

There are several reasons a system like this works:

1. Depending on why you’re logging in (to relax, to read the posts in your niche, etc.), you can read only those blogs in the applicable category and more easily ignore the rest.

2. When your unread post count gets overwhelming, you can “mark all posts as read” in one category without necessarily missing out on a post on your favorite blog.

3. Organizing by category means you can read all of your news blogs together, all of your craft blogs together and all of your cooking blogs together, rather than switching between news about Iran’s nuclear program to a pipecleaner craft for your kids!

Have you decluttered your feedreader lately? Do you find it overwhelming? Do you have your feeds organized in folders?

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About the Author

Mandi Ehman

Hi. My name is Mandi and I’m an organizing junkie. I’m also a wife, and Momma to four little girls (5.5, 4, 2.5 and a baby!). I've worked at home since our oldest was a baby, and like a lot of other moms, my life is a constant balancing act of caring for my family and my home, meeting my obligations and finding time for hobbies in there somewhere. Oh, yeah, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m somewhat of a kitchen dunce and I only like to pretend that I’m crafty. Read more here!

6 Responses to “ Organizing Your Feed Reader ”

  1. I use Google reader – I don’t know how to make folders. Do you have that somewhere on your site?
    Melissa S´s last blog ..TRYING ON CLOTHES – AT ONCE My ComLuv Profile

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  2. I know Bloglines has fallen out of fashion, but when it’s working right, it’s very easy to organize.
    Meredith´s last blog ..Fire Your Dryer My ComLuv Profile

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  3. I need to do something with all of my blogs it’s a mess.
    I use Google reader too. Is there some type of tutorial on making folders? I could use a hand too.
    Rana´s last blog ..Sing it Girl! My ComLuv Profile

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    Mandi Reply:

    Melissa and Rana,

    I took some screenshots today, and I’ll put a tutorial up on Monday! Thanks!

    [Reply]

  4. As you see, I am struggling with my reader right now! Here it is Monday and I am just now getting to your post from Friday. Do you use Google Reader? I cannot figure out how to organize my reader for the life of me! I had not been on since Friday and I opened up today to over 200 posts..talk about overwhelming!! Thanks for the advice!!

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  5. I have my Google reader set up by folders such as Finance, Food, Deals, Organizing, Mom blogs, Local, etc.
    It is great to be able to just open the folder and read about a specific topic. Saves me from getting distracted, too.
    mary b´s last blog ..Menu Plan Monday: 08 03 09 My ComLuv Profile

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