Reader Cleaning (again/still)

In these last few weeks of being overwhelmed, things like quilting and crafting are spending more time sitting in 'to do' piles than on the work tables. It isn't fun, but the thought of sifting through my mess to get to the work table requires more energy than I have - and I don't want quilting or crafting to feel like something I have to do. I want them to be things I choose to do for fun, and only occasionally be things I push myself to do under pressure of deadlines. So, while I'm disappointed not to be doing anything on them, I'm not terribly disappointed.

Things like checking my email, facebook, and Google Reader are much harder to ignore. Most days, the only way I'm able to keep ahead of my email inboxes is through my smart phone. Checking my emails on lunch breaks or long elevator rides lets me keep on top of things (especially since 9 times out of 10 all I need to do is hit delete). Facebook gets checked two or three times a day, at breakfast (I usually eat at my desk), at lunch (on my phone), and sometime before bed. Fortunately, it's a pretty quiet place.

I can't/don't check my Google Reader on my phone. I don't think the poor little thing has the space capacity left to do that, and honestly, I don't want to.

For the last couple weeks, I've been coming home to a massive list of things waiting to be read (400-800 posts on weekdays, 200-300 on weekends). There's no way I've got the time or energy for that business. So I've been picking out a few favorites, then clicking 'mark all as read.' I hate doing that - not only does it take longer to load individual subscriptions, but what's the point of following blogs if I'm constantly deeming them not worth reading?

So last night, after an hour-and-a-half of picking had only reduced my total by 45, I decided to get a bit more ruthless in my subscription cleaning.

I started with 325 subscriptions.

Which, after a spring/summer of constantly attempting to delete 5 a month, is better than my all time high (which seems like it was approaching 700). But it's still beyond what I'm capable of following if I'm going to be working this many hours.

I'm not good at purging my own stuff, so I made a few guidelines for myself:

Delete it if:

• it hasn't been updated in more than one month 
• the content (or majority of the content) no longer matches my interests
• duplicate subscriptions/dual content - I had at least three sets where I was following an 'address.com' and an 'address.blogger.com' or something similar
• anything I've consistently skipped reading for the last two weeks 
• if the Reader display is only a preview and I never click through to the actual site
• photo heavy to the point of being difficult to load or something I usually 'next' over

Keep it if: 

• it belongs to someone I like to pretend I know - the ones where I find myself starting stories with "my friend on the internet, well, not really my friend because I've never talked to them but..." 
• it inspires me
• anything I consistently choose to read when my time is short

After an hour, I was down to 264 subscriptions. 

It's not a huge difference, but I'm going to give it a couple days and see if this is a better number for me to deal with on a regular basis. I felt like I was being fairly harsh in what I unsubscribed from, but I know there are still a few more I could cut; yes, those are ones I'd miss, but they're also ones who post 20+ items per day. 

(I don't just follow house reno, diy, and sewing/quilting. I also follow some political things - which can easily blow up into a good 20+ posts a day - and some fashion submission things, and some tv/movie/book fandom things. And while these are the kinds of things I will continue to skip over on a crazy day, I'm not ready to give them up. And at this point, the only way I'm unsubscribing from those funny cat/cute dog posts are if I also unsubscribe from all the political things. It's all about balance between things I feel I ought to be aware of but make me cross vs. things that are utterly silly/cute and make me happy.)

I didn't manage to go through the whole list of subscriptions from top to bottom - in part because of time constraints - but it feels like a good start. I'll be curious to see what my unread numbers look like tomorrow when I get home. I'm hoping to see a noticeable improvement. 

Fingers crossed!

Update:
This was my 'to read' pile the next day:

Only 188 items to read. It's only been one day, but so far I'm feeling much lighter.