RSS by Time of Day

I use Feedly for my RSS reading and I believe I’ve found my favorite way to sort through the news. Last fall, I arranged my feeds into time of day: Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night, Weekend, and Work Reading. Most feeds are in multiple folders, and few are in less than two. It’s a very easy way to run through what’s happening out there in the world. At particular times during the day, I’m more interested in certain kinds of news. In the morning, I want to read national news and the personal blog posts from friends and colleagues. In the afternoon, I like all forms of news, including entertainment and trivial stuff. In the evening, the longer form articles are more interesting. At night and in the weekends, I’d rather read lifestyle stuff and to give myself a break from the think pieces and awful politics. At work, I just want to read stuff that pertains to my career, so that stuff is quarantined to office hours.

All in all, it really works. I get through my feeds quickly but without rushing. I know if I leave 50 posts in the morning list, the timely stuff I’ll likely get to later in the day. And when I want to take a real break from RSS, I check only my Vacation folder: about 20 feeds which entertain me more than inform me; a breezy list.

There is a lot of work to do in making RSS products into the forms they deserve to be. At least now I feel I’ve cracked a personal code.