Friday, September 28, 2007

Decluttering is not a four-letter word!

1. Do you know how many blogs I have in my Google Reader? 61!

I know this might not seem like much to some of you but I was most comfortable around the 40 mark so 61 is hectic for me. Even though I've decluttered 5 this week already.

Remember I work a full-time job, run a very busy part-time business and I'm married and run a household. Add to that cooking, baking and cleaning!

Now I will admit that I do have excellent time management skills but when Beth Dargis told me she cut down from 100 to 50 and her goal is 30, well...that just spurred me into action.

So that's my tackle for this weekend! Getting my feeds down to 50.


2. Also, a reminder that Beth's declutter group starts on Monday.

Quit waiting for your home to get decluttered on its own. Get a handle on the clutter in your house by working together, breaking it down and following a simple guide.

Join Certified Family Manager Coach, Beth Dargis of My Simpler Life as she coaches you to enjoy a more serene home.

LIMITED SPACES - Starts Oct 1, 2007

http://www.encouragingcoach.com/programs-decluttergroup.htm



Have a great weekend, everybody!

Tell me, how many feeds do you have in your Google Reader or Bloglines? Do you have a regular maintenance plan?

19 comments:

Unknown said...

I have 31 feeds in my reader. Every so often I delete the ones that haven't been active for a month, especially if there's no post like "taking a blogging break" or something similar.

Anonymous said...

Always under 20. Right now I have 18. Some days I think 20 is too much. :) But it's pretty manageable.

Laura said...

Hi Marcia, I have 74 feeds but I must say that I lurk on about half of those so it isn't as bad as it seems. Although I am 125 blog posts behind in my reading. I had stopped using my reader awhile ago and then got back into when I went on holidays. Gotta do something about that, yikes!!

Veggiemomof2 said...

You have inspired me to declutter my blog reader too.

I closed my folder of scrapbook blogs until I'm ready to start scrapping again.

I deleted 3 subscriptions that I don't get any good advice out of anymore. (I don't have many anyway, but that's 3 I don't bother with anymore)

Annie said...

I have 69 feeds. I look at the new posts in the morning and evening while feeding izzy. I usually can't comment at that time because I can't type... but I mark the ones I want to go back and comment. I try to at least glance at all the new posts. I don't really leave any from day to day usually.
I really like my bookmark by the way!
I hope you are having a great day!

Anonymous said...

Ouch. 83. And I had dropped about this week....thought I was doing good... hehe, I wonder if there is a help group for people like me?

Anonymous said...

Hi.
Well I have more than 100 feeds on google reader.
I read just what I want, If I dont have enought time I send to one email just for this and later I can read, or If I want to copy something or comment on my blog, I send to me and thast ok.
I dont read posts that I dont care about and If I get some crazy I just click: mark all read and forget the subject - lol
My sanity can be ok like this.
I have a lot of feeds about scrapbooking - not so many words, just pictures, lol - easy to read...
By the way, I dont understand about this group of declutter, its an email group, just a site/blog with some tips?
Could you explain me better? Thanks!
lilibollero@gmail.com
http://lilibolleroinenglish.wordpress.com

Anonymous said...

I have 42 on my feed at the moment. One is a news feed which gets some 50 odd posts a day, but they're short, no more than 2-3 lines and I can flick through those easily.

I have about 5 that don't update regularly, but I keep them on feed to find out when they do. And then I have mostly friends who update once a day and I check morning and night so it's pretty easy to keep up with.

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm . . .. I have 375 feeds in my google reader.

Of course, several of those are dead blogs or ones that don't update often. I don't take the time to "declutter" them because as long as they don't post they don't make clutter.

My blog reader is highly categorized. I always check certain tags--my IRL friends and fave blog buddies.

There are several categories where I only skim titles--I keep it in "list view." From the "trends" link, I can tell you that I open between about 20 to 70 to actually skim the post on any given day.

I share some of these by clicking share and thus automatically adding them to my blog. A handful will cause me to comment--I open all the ones I want to comment on in tabs on firefox. Then I set a comment time limit. When the time is up, I stop even if I didn't get to all of the blogs opened in the tabs.

So, in other words, I am a HUGE lurker. :)

I find if I limit myself to checking google reader to twice a day, I can sort through the feeds much faster. (Same thing goes with email. It is much easier to process 25 emails than constantly checking throughout the day and doing it one by one.)

I also have one section for blogs "to keep an eye on." If they are there a while and I decide I like them, I will move them to the category where they fit. If after a while I don't like it and decide it is not worth my time, I unsubscribe.

Anonymous said...

oh and one more thing to note . . . these are not 375 personal blogs. Some belong to organizations or groups I want/need to track.

There is no way I could manage that many personal blogs.

Unknown said...

I read 59 blogs, but some don't post daily. I was actually thinking this morning of deleting those who don't ever reply to comments left ~ there are about 5 of those!

Anonymous said...

I have under 20. I'm always pruning. If someone goes 5 days without a new post (and no "I'm on hiatus, be back soon" message), they get the ax pretty quickly. I like to de-clutter on the fly and keep it clean.

NotJustLaura said...

I have 31 which I think is Not Too Bad. Certainly it's easy enough to keep up with them. I am a bit 'click-happy' though so the list is growing and I have a feeling I'll be needing a maintenance programme before long ...

Marcia Francois said...

Lili...
I am impressed at your discipline to just “mark all as read” – that is awesome! I also subscribe to lots of creative blogs and the photos help to go through them quickly, don’t they?

About the declutter group, you can read about it here http://www.encouragingcoach.com/programs-decluttergroup.htm but I know that you get a workbook with lots of material to help you in your decluttering journey, and then Beth hosts an online chat room once a week. She will send you the links for the chat room, you log on at the correct time and she helps you through any challenges you’ve experienced through the week. So you get the material and you get weekly coaching!

I have personally used two of Beth’s programs (simplicy and procrastination courses) and I can assure you the content will be top-notch! If you have any questions, please email Beth directly through her site at www.encouragingcoach.com because the group starts on Monday, so hurry!!!

Unknown said...

Well I am at 17 and I am thinking of canning two of my feeds. I realized that the piddily few that I have has really caused me to neglect my interaction with the ones that I love. So, I am definitely going to be scaling back and just concentrating on the ones I love and every now and again I will just browse through my favorite blogs for their feeds and check out what is happening in the rest of the world. :) And I am keeping yours! xx

Megs said...

I have mine at about 30. I went through a stage where I added a whole bunch, but it got too out of hand and I went back down to 30.

I think it helps to have them categorized, so if you are short of time, you can just read through the one category that you really want/need to read through.

Anonymous said...

ok, call me pathetic, I don't even USE a blog reader LOL... I can only IMAGINE how cluttered it WOULD be if I did use one though... you should see my email inbox :o

Jenny said...

I have about 30. But, thanks to you, I have organized them into different categories so I can breeze right through them. Unless I go on a week's "holiday" and there are 290 to read when I come back!! {{stress,stress,worry}} I'm catching up, and will declutter as I go.
I'm thankful I learned this lesson a while back-again, from YOU-so that I'm not clicking all over the place trying to keep up.

Mana Laura said...

Hi Marica,
I just decluttered my Reader from 36 to 22. Most of what I cut were ones where people weren't posting any more and I hadn't noticed. Some I just found I wasn't interested in any more. There was some small trepidation - what if they post something I would like sometime?? Silly, isn't it!
thanks for the inspiration!
Laura

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