Staying on Top of Blog Reading

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Victoria Janssen

I could easily spend hours every day reading other people’s blog posts. Plus, I’m always finding new blogs, often through interesting links I’m given on Twitter or LiveJournal. After a long weekend, where I may or may not have gone online, it gets worse.

I add links to my blog reader probably a lot more often than is good for me. Luckily, not every blog has a new post every day, or even every week. And I have a few strategies for staying ahead of my blogroll.

1. If a blog loses my interest for several posts in a row, I ruthlessly cut it from my regular list.

2. I try not to read too many blogs on the same topic. This is tricky for some categories, such as book review blogs. But for, say, blogs about World War One, I stick to two or three of my favorites that seem to offer the best content the most often.

3. Of the blogs I follow, I skim before I read. That way, if a blog is reviewing a book for which I want to avoid spoilers, I can skip the post until I’ve read the book. Or I can skip reviews of books I read but don’t care to hear further opinions about. Or I can skip posts about news items that I’ve been hearing about all day.

Got any good blogs I should follow?

Does anyone follow blogs on their e-reader? How does that work for you?

About Victoria Janssen

Victoria Janssen [she, her] currently writes cozy space opera for Kalikoi. The novella series A Place of Refuge begins with Finding Refuge: Telepathic warrior Talia Avi, genius engineer Miki Boudreaux, and augmented soldier Faigin Balfour fought the fascist Federated Colonies for ten years, following the charismatic dissenter Jon Churchill. Then Jon disappeared, Talia was thought dead, and Miki and Faigin struggled to take Jon’s place and stay alive. When the FC is unexpectedly upended, Talia is reunited with her friends and they are given sanctuary on the enigmatic planet Refuge. The trio of former guerillas strive to recover from lifetimes of trauma, build new lives on a planet with endless horizons, and forge tender new connections with each other.
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4 Responses to Staying on Top of Blog Reading

  1. Wendy says:
    October 21, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    I hear ya on #3. I'm a champion skimmer. The skimming then helps me decide if I need to go back and do a proper read, leave a comment etc.

    And I really, really need to follow your advice in regards to #1. I follow countless blogs on my Google Reader that I never read, never comment on, and frankly don't particularly "move" me. So why am I still following them? The ol' fear of "missing out" I guess? Gah.

  2. Victoria Janssen says:
    October 21, 2010 at 5:30 pm

    I need to follow my own advice on #1 a little more assiduously, I think!

  3. Heather says:
    October 22, 2010 at 8:16 pm

    This is one reason I love Google Reader. It makes it so easy to skim your favorite blogs, then either skip or reply to those you want. Every once in a while I review the blogs in my queue and gt rid of those that have gone inactive, or which I no longer really follow.

  4. Victoria Janssen says:
    October 22, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    I have Google Reader, and should use it much more.

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