I recently came across Tim Ferriss's [1] entry How Scoble Reads 622 RSS Feeds Each Morning, which motivated me to post an "aha" I recently had about processing RSS feeds. (What I took away from the Scoble video was how selective he his in deciding to read a post, how he makes that choice, and that he uses feeds for "relationship work" - networking - so he can be smart when talking with someone. However, I didn't get much on how to handle so many feeds.)

I read about 200 feeds [2] right now, and when I'm feeling overloaded I noticed I avoided keeping up with them. I had an "afraid to click" dynamic because I knew there would be consequences (having to decide the meaning of each post - and there are lots of them) with that click. After some thought, I realized there are only two kinds of posts: Those I want to read, and those I don't (deep, I know). Since all of the feeds I subscribe to are potentially valuable (otherwise I unsubscribe), the work (and it is work) is to go through them as quickly as possible to "harvest" the action involved.

In other words, it's simply the processing and organizing [3] phases of Getting Things Done.

Here's how I do it: I click the feed (or folder, if they're grouped), take the hit (lots will load up), and zip through them one at a time. I've set my reader to show only headlines (best for most feeds except newsletters), so I scan each title and decide mercilessly whether it deserves a deeper look. If so, I use Firefox's middle-click to open in new tab feature [4] to temporarily bookmark it, then move on. Once I've gone through all the new feeds I use keyboard shortcuts to go through each tab to decide "Is it actionable?," closing each tab when I've handled it. With feed reading this usually boils down to:

• Does it still look valuable?
• If so, is it short enough to read in two minutes? If yes, read it.
• If not, I put it into my to read stream. For blogs, the stream is to buffer up articles-to-read in a text file, print them once a week, and carry them in my Read/Review folder.

Note that this gets me rapidly through lots of posts, essentially moving them from "IN" to my actions list. However, it does require you to have a good "to read" system in place. Otherwise you'll feel compelled to read them all, which takes you from processing and organizing to doing, and that, my friend, will drag you down.

When I finally end up reading the post (either in two minutes or later) I typically have a limited set of resulting actions:

• Try a new behavior/install a new habit (example: keeping a decision log),
• Save it for reference [5] - either for me or clients (examples: saying no and FileHamster),
• Send it to someone who will hopefully find it valuable (a great little networking gift, along with this one),
• Save it as a Someday/Maybe item (I choose to print and file them in a paper folder),
• Respond (either via a blog post, an email to the author, or a forum comment), or
• Save it as a writing topic (I love stimulating reading that gets me thinking - fun!)

Clearly there are others, but the key point is to have an efficient system to turn the reading into action, and to whiz through them. I like my tagged text file (see Pickle jars, text files, and creative idea capture), but use whatever works.

How about you - Have any good tips for handling RSS feeds? I'd love to hear them.

References

• [1] Ferriss has received a ton of recognition for his book The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (it's in my candidates library - see A reading workflow based on Leveen's "Little Guide"). You might enjoy his blog and site.
• [2] My current feed list is here. I use Bloglines for my reading, especially for its killer email-as-feed feature - which gets lists that are email-based out of my inbox. Highly recommended.
• [3] You might be interested in How to process stuff - A comparison of TRAF, the "Four Ds", and GTD's workflow diagram.
• [4] More great Firefox tips at 15 Coolest Firefox Tricks Ever, including my all-time favorite Reopen the last closed tab with Ctrl+Shift+T.
• [5] I had a colleague who tagged these "MUS" - Might be USeful - which I use regularly.
• [6] You might enjoy my article Information provenance - the missing link between attention, RSS feeds, and value-based filtering.