The happiness of getting a major boost in productivity: the RSS reader.

Why, oh why, did I wait so long to start using an RSS reader?

I’m not exactly tech-savvy, and I’d convinced myself that using an RSS reader wouldn’t be much more efficient than just visiting individual blogs.

Finally, however, after getting a pep talk and some email coaching from Ben Casnocha, I decided to try to set up an RSS reader for myself.

I’d heard that Newsgator’s FeedDemon was a good service (there are many other good ones too), so without any further research, I signed up. Zoikes, I love it!

If, like me, you have only a vague sense of what an RSS reader might be, About.com has a good explanation.

In brief, an RSS reader allows you to open up your reader to see a list of all your chosen blogs, neatly lined up; by clicking on the title of the blog, you see an updated list of posts. This way of reading blogs allows you to cruise the blogosphere with vastly greater ease and speed.

The disadvantage is that you can’t see the comments, or post comments, without visiting the blog itself—but it takes just one click to do that, so it’s not very hard.

I still haven’t figured out how to use the bright orange icon (see top left-hand column) to add a blog to my RSS reader. I enter the URL in, instead. So I’m hardly a whiz at using the service – and still I love it.

One key to happiness is to challenge yourself, to learn something new. It can be frustrating and intimidating to learn something new, of course, but nothing beats the feeling of satisfaction when you finally figure it out.

In figuring out how to use an RSS reader, I reminded myself of several useful rules:
 “Ask for help” (thanks, Ben!)
 “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” (i.e., don’t do endless research to find the “best,” just find a good choice and act)
 “I am as smart as most people” (if lots of other people can figure this out, I probably can too)
 “Put myself in jail” (pretend that I’m in jail, so I have all the time and patience in the world to tackle a problem).

So give using an RSS reader a shot! And if you do, please consider subscribing to my RSS feed: Subscribe to this blog's feed.

Comments

[Juggling Frogs]

Enjoy, Gretchen! I 'discovered' the Google reader about two months ago, and haven't looked back.

Saving time and keeping up with the many wonderful blogs in my reader keeps me very happy, indeed.

[starbucksweetie]

Great minds think alike, I started using Google Reader 2 days ago. I think it's addictive and efficient.

[Debi]

My husband introduced me to Netvibes a couple of months ago and I haven't looked back. It allows me group rss feeds by their topic on separate tabs. It's really amazing how many blogs and headlines I can sift through very quickly. I don't know if it's made me more productive - but if not, I'm certainly a well-read slacker.

[Jennifer]

With Google Reader, you can put a button marked "next" in your favorites. By clicking there, it will take you page by page to all of your subscribed feeds. BUT the best part is that not only is it just as fast as using Bloglines or other services, you can see the blog page in its original form. The page that opens up is that particular entry's page, so the comment section is open and it takes no additional effort or clicking to leave a comment. Don't know what I would do without Google Reader! (P.S. You can import your feeds into Google Reader, too.)

[Inihtar]

Awesome! RSS feeds are great. I like your fourth tip. . . put yourself in jail:) I'm trying to figure out how to set up a wireless router (and figure out if I got the right one to begin with) with the instructions all in Japanese (I don't read a word of Japanese). . . I think I'll try to adopt your rules!

[Janna]

I just discovered the live bookmarks RSS feed thingy on Firefox recently and it's so helpful! Congrats on figuring it out, hehe.

[BlogReader]

What I like about gReader is that I can give a handful of labels to all my 74 subscriptions so I can zoom through all of the "tech" and "productivity" (for some reason this blog is under there, probably because I picked it up from the lifehacker RSS feed).

Anyway I find myself skimming over the topics with the space key and hitting "s" for those I want to save later. In just a couple of minutes I've gone through 100+ posts and pulled out the dozen I want to read, which I'll do later on in the day when I have some time.

The alternative would be to go look for news and then read it right then. Which really throws me for a context switch as I'm searching ... and then reading. I like separating those into 2 distinct tasks so I can concentrate on the subject matter.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Now I realize that in "asking for help," I should have posted a question for everyone: "What RSS reader do folks recommend?" Sounds like Google Reader has ardent fans. I don't know why I have to force myself to ask for help -- it just doesn't come naturally, even when I am stumped. Well, at least I have a reader that works for me, and I got that far.

[Broom]

Actually, Gretchen, you can also subscribe to a blogs comment feed (if you're REALLY addicted to blogs like I am!) and then you get to read all the comments you want as well.

[Kay Dennison]

This is so terrific! Thanks!

[Hanna]

will you add me? but more importantly, will you make your subsciptions public so I can check them out too - you always give links to such great sites!

I love RSS too

[Ben Casnocha]

Welcome to the world of RSS, Gretchen!

[Monica Ricci]

Gretchen, I've just started using Google Reader myself. I previously used Live Bookmarks, which is just as easy, so I suspect I'll use both.
~Monica

[David]

From the title, I thought this was going to be a post about unsubscribing from feeds. RSS and Atom are great, but if you subscribe to too many feeds, it's a drag on productivity.

I've been cutting down on the number of feeds I read and it has definitely been worthwhile.

[Mad William Flint]

bloglines.com

It allows me to really keep up on over 200 feeds. It's fully featured and completely web-based so I don't have to worry about what machine I'm on.