RSS feeds can be your best friend, they can also be your worst nightmare when you wake up and have thousands of new items to scan over, hundreds which dont even interest you.

Newsfirerss

5.

First step, get NewsFire! NewsFire is the best RSS reader, hands down. Simple interface, just the features you need, fast and with a neat sound effect to let you know something’s been downloaded. NetNewsWire has been around longer and has many more features, but that requires more configuration and thinking.

NewsFire is hands down, no argument, the best RSS reader for the Mac.

4.

Go through all of your feeds and decide which ones you no longer read. The more you remove the more free time you will have, and less time stressing over unread feeds. I generally remove feeds which aren’t regularly updated, or have drifted off-topic from the time of me originally adding them to my collection.

3.

Change the option of checking feeds every “x” minutes to 13. Studies have shown the longest people can focus on one task at any given time is 13 minutes. If you set your reader to refresh every 13 minutes you’ll be able to take a short break from your work, search through the feeds, then get back to work and repeat for the rest of the working day.

2.

If you feel a certain feed has so much content soaring through it and it’s a constant distraction, simple set that one feed to check every hour, or every day, not at 13 minute intervals like your other feeds.

Distraction diminished.

1.

My number one tip to keeping organized with RSS is to create groups in your RSS reader based on importance. Set up a folder for very important, important, normal, low importance, and very low importance. Then assign each and every one of your feeds to a folder. This way you’ll be able to actually read your news and know you have found out the important stuff if you dont have enough time to clear through everything, you can just check out the important stuff.

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