Decluttering the Blog Subscriptions

Unsubscribing from all email/newsletters/blogs that don't make me say "awesome!" when I read them. -- Scott Stratten, UnMarketing

I subscribe to a lot of blogs - some for work, some for personal reasons - but as of now, I subscribe to about 20% fewer than I did a few hours ago. That's because I decided to follow Scott's lead.

Now, some of the blogs I removed from my list on Google Reader were not really a problem; they weren't being published any more, anyway. But I also removed blogs that fit into one of these categories:

- Blogs that might indeed provide good information sometimes, but the format is just too annoying. That includes blogs with color combinations that hurt my eyes, and blogs that don't leave any space between the paragraphs - also hard on the eyes.

- Blogs I thought I should read, because they relate to my industry, but I just didn't enjoy them. There are plenty of industry-related blogs I do enjoy reading; there's no point in forcing myself to read the others.

- Blogs I tried out for a while, but they just didn't capture my attention, so it was time to end the trial and take them off my list.

It's amazing how good it feels to do even a little decluttering like this! And of course it will save me time every day, too.

Technical note: I subscribe to blogs in Google Reader - an RSS reader - rather than by e-mail. If you want to learn about RSS, you can watch the RSS in Plain English video or read The Simple Guide to RSS Readers.