RSS Feeds

Subscribe to lots of RSS feeds. But how to organize?

Right now, I’m attempting a three folder system

Folder 1. Actual Reading

This is a folder you could diligently and even addictively read on a daily basis and not feel guilty about, or feel like you were wasting anytime. In fact, as some new media people might have us believing soon, this kind of reading may be a perfectly valid …um, substitution (?)…um, yeah, for actually reading books, you know … that old 15th century hardware, and 18th century software.

Folder 2. Feed Candy (aka Crack, aka Time-Waste Central)

This is anything you’d tag #humor, #awesome, #funny, #tech, #cool, #fail, etc. This is the raison d’etre of the web, but it doesn’t have to be yours. Limit time in this section.

Folder 3. Infrequent Check-Ins (aka Stuff either you think you should be reading but don’t have in Folder 1 or Stuff you use to get your fix when your Crack folder runs out)

Be very careful with this stuff. It might mean you need to go out and exercise, or at least turn the computer off. Or the guilt of how little you’ve accomplished in your intellectual career is growing. And for the stuff that’s just sitting in there? Why isn’t it gone for good? Now there might actually be a good reason for that…It would be great if Google Reader had a hide or archive like feature where you could recall at a later date what your subscriptions were in case you want to resurrect them.

Re: Periodic Infrequent Check-Ins. For example, I might want to read something on the Mozilla Firefox blog every once in a while, so instead of visiting the website and looking for the blog I can just keep that feed in the Reader and check it occasionally

I have had other systems where I go by subject (politics, tech, funnies, etc.) but I think a priority system is better. Also, I recommend never reading from the “All Items” folder because it is way too distracting to switch back and forth between politics, fail, tech, etc.

Public Library

Don’t bother with public libraries. It takes too much effort to take out the books you want (because they’re usually only available through InterLibrary Loan, which takes forever, limits your check out time and doesn’t allow for renewing), and you don’t get around to them in time, and then you have to pay overdue fees.

Better to invest in a book, keep it on your shelf, get to it in your own time.

@current

Public Library

System Sally recommends you use your public library more than you have in the past. There are newspapers, magazines, books, and free wifi available. Water fountains too.

The advantages to this are saving money and running into your friends

@next

Reading at Bedtime

Lying in bed is an ok time to read. I would recommend against it for serious reading, as dozing is a serious obstacle to focused active reading, but reading at night is nonetheless a great pleasure.

Keep a non-fiction book, a novel, and an “agentive” book. I don’t think agentive is an official word, but I’m using it here to describe any book that acts as an agent of change in your life in whatever aspect. This could include a self-help book, or a religious book, or a how-to book. Having a non-fiction book (information), a novel (entertainment), and an agentive book (instructions) on the nightstand gives you a full range of options depending on what mood you are in when you hit the propped up pillows.

A journal, and a couple of magazines are also great to have on your nightstand. Computer in bed is no good, and we all know that. Use this precious time to connect with solid information, real characters, or truly deep and inspirational instruction of whatever variety after a long day of fast, superficial information from the internet.

When a book has hooked you, I don’t think staying up has any negative effect on your health. I think, somehow, staying up all night reading has the same regenerative effect as sleeping or meditating. Is it just me, or is this other peoples’ experience?

Recommendations

When finishing a book, or reading a particularly interesting blog post, or dining at some great restaurant people often feel impelled to make a recommendation to a friend or relative. Many times this simply irritates the person on the receiving end, or they forget, or they are well meaning but never get around to it anyway. Why is recommending things such a precarious act? Is there a good system out there for deciding when to dole out recommendations or when to heed those that have been doled to you?

Let me analyze one such possible recommendation. If I have a read a book, let’s say Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” and found it particularly well-written and intelligent, I may want my friends and family to share in the experience that I had being thoroughly enthralled by it. The problem with this is that everyone knows full well that Barack Obama is about to become the president, and that there are probably some kind of books available either by him or about him that are fascinating reads. If they really thought that following-up with their President meant reading his book, they would have read it, already, just like I did. A recommendation in this case could only serve to put someone over the edge who had pretty much been planning to do it anyway but was a little distracted by other concerns. Maybe my recommendation may even serve as a competitive force for some friends who want to be contemporary with my book shelf, lest they be considered not as well-informed.

For people not planning to read the book, the recommendation is simply unnecessary and worse, probably seen as some sort of self-aggrandizement. A recommendation turns from “You should read this,” to “Look at me, I read this.”

Telling someone about something that they may not know of, like some hidden away restaurant is not a recommendation…it’s a bit of information sharing. When you take that extra step and say “I think you’d like this,” you run the risk of doing some sort of reverse psychology (“Ugh, he thinks I would like this, I hate it already!”) or being annoying “I think you’d like this, because I like this and you should be exactly like me.”

Just occasionally, depending on the person, a recommendation is on the money. Someone reads something, or eats something, that they just know–in their gut–that the other person will appreciate. In these cases, it is important to have a skillful way of communicating this. If you’re too forceful or preachy you will turn them off, and yet if you’re not persuasive enough, this great opportunity may pass.

I’m much more inclined to recommend information sharing over recommendations. I recommend this, because I feel–in my gut–that recommendations are mostly tainted with all of these selfish motives that I have been describing. When it feels appropriate, there are many advantages to recommending things as well, and you should feel free to recommend when you need to.

The system: Share information with your friends, and let them make their own decisions. When you intuit that someone will benefit from something and may not decide that way necessarily, offer a recommendation. Avoid the phrase “You should watch that,” or “read” or “eat,” and replace it with “I think that you would enjoy this. I recommend it.”

Guides

If you can, avoid guides.

Guides are often designed for the unadventurous, and they are quickly and easily subject to change. It is better to cultivate the ability to guide yourself.

That being said, it is often important to have a guide, or unavoidable, and in this case, you should relate to your guide with reverance, trust, respect, and a grain of salt. Whether the guide is written, or a person, the guide can only take you as far as they have explored, and it is good to understand that no one is all knowing. A good guide will also teach you the skills you will eventually need to guide yourself. Catch a man a fish…

More to come.

Reading Books

Make a stack of books you want to read. Buy books you want to read and put them in this stack, just so you have them and can grab them when you want to.

Make a stack of books you are in the process of reading. Use 3×5 blank index cards as bookmarks. Feel free to write in books, unless they are rare or special, or you plan on selling them. You will get much more out of a book if you let yourself write in it. Write the date you started it, things you were thinking of when reading certain pages, whatever.

Menus

Using a menu properly can take some practice. There are three different types of menus. The first is a menu you look at while standing, another you look at while sitting, and the third is a sitting-style menu that is short and intentional, like you might find at a fancy restaurant.

With the first type (standing) you are standing while giving your order, and often times you are telling them exactly what you want as you point to it. This happens at Burrito places, fast food Chinese food places, and at street vendors. In these situations, if you can see the food you should trust your eyes, nose, and gut in deciding the food for you. If you cannot see the food, the menu above (or now more down near the cash register) you need to be able to quickly choose your food. If you are having a hard time, stand back from the line so people know they can go ahead of you.

With the second and third type (both sitting) you want to take the menu as it is handed to you, or lift it up from the table, and see what visually stimulates you. Still, the general policy is that you should follow systemsally’s number one restaurant rule, and along with that you should pretty much go to a restaurant already knowing mostly what you’re in the mood for. Don’t go to a mexican restaurant if you’re stomach is telling you sushi. That should be number two restaurant rule. I go to Italian restaurants usually because I want to eat a cheesy pasta dish, and then maybe I make the final choice in the moment whether I want chicken, shrimp, or vegetables. In other words, the main menu rule is that the menu should be there to simply finalize the craving you already had. Never look at prices. If you are out to eat, you already know you’re going to be paying way too much for food you could cook at home for 35 cents.

When you go out to a restaurant that someone else picks you should first follow the number one restaurant rule, be willing to try something new, or if that is going to work for you, most places have a fallback standard that you know you will like.

When you go out to a new kind of restaurant (like you’ve never been to ethipian) let the person you’re going out with make the call as to what to order. But learn the menu so you can repeat when you’re by yourself, or introducing someone else.

Ask wait staff what their favorite dishes are. You don’t actually value their opinion, it’s just that this an extension of the number one food rule, and it often uplifts the wait staff if they’re having a rough day.

Never read a menu from front to back. Always know there is something you have never seen before.

Books

If you get a paperback book needs to stay open (a textbook, piano sheet music), bring it to kinkos and they will spiral bind it for you.

Religion

system G1.1.1

Study everything you can about how people have thought about the big questions of life so that you can ultimately see that “there is no path to truth.”