Some people like to subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds for variety in content. I myself have various tabs set up in my Netvibes account, each dedicated to a specific genre. One tab for Tech/Blogs, one for Design and so on. Each tab has an average of 5 - 10 feeds in them. Some days I spend an hour to two or more reading, sometimes I just skim the headlines and only read if it interests me.

If you have subscribed to way more feeds than you can handle, but you don’t want to unsubscribe as the blogs you read all have relevant information for you, then here’s 5 Ways to Become a Faster RSS Reader.

1. Segregate - All RSS readers have tab or folder functionality where you can group feeds as you like. Most do it by type of content, like me, instead organize them by time of day. Choose the feeds that you have to absolutely must read before you start your day and put them in a “Start” or “Morning” folder. So just read them and nobody else in the morning, go on organizing your other feeds like that as well by time of day or even an importance level. Some examples are - Morning, Evening, Before Bed or Must Read, Wait Till Later and even make a Probation folder for feeds that were good at one point of time but suck now. Please don’t put me in that one
2. Colors - If your RSS start page or reader allows you to place colors around or on the tabs of your feeds then use them. I use colors now to show which feeds are more important to read for me. Red for the must read feeds {within any specific tab after segregating them} ones that can wait till later will have an orange, blue for ones that usually write longer posts so I know I need to be relaxed to read them and so on. Netvibes allows me to use colors, that’s why I chose them over others.
3. Look for Keywords - You know the kind of person you are and what interests you, so gaze over all the headlines you see for words that get your attention, read those posts first and leave the rest for later. Sometimes a post might be long, so skim over the post to look for keywords, read a few lines of the first paragraph and then jump over to where the “point” is being made. If the blogger doesn’t format their posts properly, then there’s always the probationary folder.
4. Numbers don’t matter - If your reader says you have “X” number of posts to read just click them off. Then go back and see what you want to read. Just because a blog posts 20 times a day doesn’t mean you have to read all of them, unless you’re devoted like that.
5. Email Subscriptions - Almost all good blogs offer email subscriptions, as I do. If you work a day job, then you can get your favorite content delivered to your office email address. So signing up for email delivery for blogs that you read the most is a good idea, provided they offer it. My email sign up form is on the sidebar. This way you can read your favorite feeds at work during breaks and catch up with other ones at home.

Hope these tips help you optimize the time you spend reading your feeds.

About the author

Hyder has been blogging for the past two years on this blog. He started Weborithm, his web company, in 2007 and along with designing blogs and websites also releases various web related products.