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.

The Paper

Subscribe to the paper.

Until e-ink becomes cheap and standard and big, paper is still a better way to read long articles. If you happen to have the money, it is a good investment to get yourself a subscription to the New York Times, or Wall Street Journal, or whatever.

Organize the paper.

If, for some reason, you don’t get a chance to read the whole paper from the day before, you should still read the front section on the day you get it. Same with the business section. After that, though, arts, sports, travel, science, or whatever should be kept in a “to read” pile. You can get to those whenever you get a chance.

Take out each section so that instead of being folded into each other they are laying on top of each other. A, B, C, D, and so on. When finished reading you should throw each section of the floor face down. Be careful not to leave the paper on a white surface because some ink may stain. If there are any articles you want to keep either cut them out and make a scrapbook, or make a bookmark for yourself from the web version. Come the end of the week, recycle your paper. Also, find out if any of your neighbors or friends would like to read the paper, and you can give it to them every day and let them recycle it.

For reading, you can lay the paper down on a bed, big table, or couch. Also, do the old fashioned hold up. This can get messy, and build your anxiety. The big table approach is better.

For each article, read the headline, and if interested read the first line, paragraph, first four paragraphs and so on. As soon as you are no longer interested drop it and move on. If you read everything in the New York Times it would take you a few hours every day. That’s unnecessary.

Movie Showtimes

system D1.189.2

Text Google SMS with “Movie Zipcode” and follow the instructions. It will give you the showtimes right there.