Creative Encouragement: Read Less Blogs Part 2, aka 8 Tips to Trimming Your Blog Reader

Hello and Happy Monday, friends!

Today’s post is a follow up to last week’s post, Creative Encouragement: Read Less Blogs.  So many of you have felt the same angst as I did over not being able to keep up with your blog list that you were relieved to not be the only one paring down.

Others of you still feel this guilt or remorse over not being able to keep up with your reads (even though you know it’s supposed to be a fun thing) that you came looking for more practical tips.

Below, I’ve rounded up the great tips & ideas that came from the discussion in the comments.  Thank you so much for sharing!

1.  Separate business blogs and fun blogs into different categories, maybe even different readers.

Make very clear distinctions between reading for fun and reading for business.

Bobbi pointed out that her FOMO (fear of missing out) came from trying to keep up with the business blogs she felt she should be reading, and the blogs in her target market, and the blogs she wants to read for fun.

This is another place were my “think of blogs like books” comes in handy. If we’re reading a business book at work, we probably don’t feel badly about reading our murder mystery at home later than night.  Even though the business book is unfinished and there’s a stack of half-read recipe books in the kitchen.  And a pile of magazines in the bathroom.

We need to translate this thinking to our digital world.

I’d start with “Friends and Faves” “Business Reading” and “Customer’s Blogs”.

Just because following your passion blurs the line between work and play, doesn’t mean you can’t have helpful lines when you need them. 

And just because they’re all on the computer in blog format, doesn’t mean they hold the same place and function in our psyche.

If you’re keeping up with a couple small biz blogs to keep your ducks in a row and being a regular presence on some of your customer’s blogs to get the ducks, you’re doing work.  Tackling those blogs to read during business hours will help you get a lot more out of them.  And skim through them on the days you need to skim.

And then, when it’s time to rest, or take your lunch break, popping into your “Friends and Faves” will be enjoyable again.

2. Delete blogs that make you feel badly.

Andi of Untangling Knots brought up this excellent point and said,

“I deleted one other group that you didn’t mention. I deleted all the blogs that sparked feelings of jealousy or that I was comparing myself to. They might have been good well written blogs, but I couldn’t properly enjoy them. Deleting them made reading much happier for me.”

Well said.  Whether it’s your issues or the blogger’s, it doesn’t really matter.  When there is too much positive to keep up with, why waste time on any negativity at all?

3.  Accept the idea that “well-read” doesn’t mean “well-read in everything, all the time”.

I’m not even sure what “well-read” means to people anymore, but we must face facts that the phrase came from a time where that was possible.  If that bothers you, remember, think of blogs as books.

You may be well-read in science fiction, but do you know the intricacies of the history of the Middle Ages?  You may know all the correct facts and many foibles of every Ren Faire on the planet, but are you well-read in murder mysteries?  And poetry?  And Russian novels?  We do not expect each other to be well read in every book genre, so why do we expect to be well read in every blog genre?

Or even one?  British murder mysteries or American or French?  Modern or classic? Spy novels or Whodunits? Police procedurals or psychological suspense? You see where I’m going with this, right?

Art, or Craft, or Design? Knitting or Sewing? Clothing or Quilts? Traditional quilts or modern quilts? Home quilts or art quilts?

We don’t try to read a chapter of every book in the library at the same time, so why try to read every blog simultaneously?  This leads to number 4….

4. Use physcial decluttering ideas in your digital space. “Keep only what you use and love”

Adélie of Verte Adélie was so good to remind us of this.

“I totally agree with the “read less but better” idea, and it’s actually the way I’m currently trying to reorganize all my digital world, including the blog reading part. The key idea when you want to declutter your home is to keep only what you use and what you love – I try to apply that same principle! The system you describe works well for twitter, too: I replaced all my by-categorie lists by priority lists, and now that I’ve been using the system for about 2 months, I know I can cut the number of people I read every day even more, and really appreciate the people I read.”

After her comment, I realized that my Favorites, Sometimes, and Perusal categories were much like the boxes recommended for decluttering.  There’s the Trash, Keep, Donate, and Maybe box. Now, goodness knows we don’t need to donate our no longer read blogs, but the others can be digitally translated.  Delete, Read, and the Sometimes/Perusal categories.

In using mine for a month or two now, I’ve already moved some blog up or down from their original categories based on how often I’m really reading them.  A few that I couldn’t Delete the first time around, eventually got deleted from the Perusal category because I still wasn’t reading them.  It’s effectively acting as my “Maybe” or “Toss if not used in 6 months box”.

5. Sometimes your interests change, so it’s okay if your blog list does, too.

Pretty self explanatory.  If you’re just no longer into beading/scrapbooking/quilting but are digging the pottery/crochet/mixed media, your blog list should reflect this. No one is looking over your shoulder.  Really.

6. Give very careful consideration to “Wish-list fodder” blogs.

Abby commented on my last post,

“Focus and quality are more likely to lead to creation. It has certainly been my experience that blogs that, for me, lead only to crafty-feeling/thinking/wishing haven’t over the past few years translated into any more DOING which was my (and probably most/many readers’) goal in subscribing to all these blogs in the first place. Now comes the task of figuring out which blogs I follow have most often incited me to action and creation & which serve as filler, wish-list fodder, or inhibitors”

I hadn’t heard the phrase “wish-list fodder blog” before, but it is so, so true!  And something I personally think we should fight against.

Just like there is a wide gulf between feeling crafty & being crafty, there’s a wide gulf between filling your house with creative things and really living a creative life.

One may lead to the other, but still, they are not the same. This is probably a post in itself, but let’s stop there.

But if you are wanting to read blogs that bring you happiness & inspire you to create, maybe reading too many blogs full of stuff you’ll never buy or don’t need isn’t the best use of your time?

7. Delete blogs that duplicate each other.

These could be the wish-list fodder blogs above, blogs that all post the same DIYs or artists, blogs that post the same information.  You get the idea.

8. The next time you want a creative rush, go finish a project instead of reading blogs (or popping on Pinterest).

(Believe me, I’m aware of the irony of writing this stuff in blog posts.  But hey, if blogs are like books, then I’m an author, writing about writing. Which is as old as time.)

But back to you…. Go make something.  (Thank you Kat for emphasizing this)

I can’t tell you how happy I was to receive tweets from Jodi of Sew Fearless and Leila Breton of The Three Dresses Project

saying: “I decided that I wouldn’t turn on the computer until the hats for my kids were done. #hatsrdone” – Leila @LBreton

and “Today I am committing to not read through my blogs or go on Pinterest until I make something.” – Jodi @Sewfearless

Yay!!!!

And to have Nina of Thrifty Finn come back a second time, commenting,

“I’m jumping back in the discussion…I did what you and others suggested here and got rid of blogs that made me feel bad for one reason or other. The feeling when I saw the number of unread posts going down and down and down, was great! Now I’m targeting the product blogs but it’s turning out to be harder. So for now I’ve decided to keep my eye on those, read every post for a week and in the end, keep only one. The one which has the best interesting to me/amount of posts- ratio. Thanks again for talking about this matter!”

Double Yay!!!!

And Sarah of Geek+Nerd said,

“I went to my reader lickety split and put your blog categories into place. I deleted twenty blogs. I marked all as read in the “Sometimes” and “Perusal” folders. Wow, that felt good. “

Triple Yay!!!!

They did it.  I did it.  You are Us. You don’t have to feel guilty over 100s or 1000s of unread blog posts.

You can trim your reader up, enjoy it again, and have time to make more of whatever it is you make.

And now I sound like a commercial…two more things….

Two Endnotes:

Reading less blogs does not mean you have to write less.

Maybe it will free you to write more?  There are always more readers than writers.

Diane at Craftypod started digging into the writerly side of the discussion with this post, “If Reading Fewer Blogs is Healthy, What Does That Mean for Craft Bloggers?” There is tons of great discussion on this topics in the comments there, too.

Practice creative isolation.

Get off the computer on the weekends.  Take a week off from blogs entirely each season.

More on these another time, as they are their own posts.

Thank you so much for not only commenting and sharing your stories but being generous with your advice and encouragement to each other.  That is the best of the online making community, I think – helping each other remove barriers to making. 

Happy reading & making, everyone!

Creative Encouragement: Read Less Blogs, Part 1 here.

Related posts:

1. Why eClasses are Worth It, Part I

Tagged as: Age of Free