Hey guys! This post is a little different today. Yesterday a discussion came up on the BLM (Bloggers Like Me) Group on Facebook about blog reading and organization. More specifically Miss Rockwell of Lifestyles of the Thrift and Shameless asked:
How in THEE WORLD do you all keep up with all of the great
blogs listed here in addition to the blogs that you were reading on a
daily basis (before this group launched). Do you all have a specific
strategy scheduling a block of time to read, reading regular blogs on
Mondays, BLM blogs on Tuesdays? I’m seriously struggling here.
Responses PLEASE!!!
blogs listed here in addition to the blogs that you were reading on a
daily basis (before this group launched). Do you all have a specific
strategy scheduling a block of time to read, reading regular blogs on
Mondays, BLM blogs on Tuesdays? I’m seriously struggling here.
Responses PLEASE!!!
My response was that I only read blogs through my Google Reader and I took the time to organize them into specific folders for easy reading. This has helped me so much, before everything was all over the place and jumbled together. I prefer Google Reader because it allows you to subscribe to a blog via Google Friend Connect or RSS feed. If the blog doesn’t have an RSS Feed option listed you can still subscribe via the bookmark tab in Fire Fox, for those that use Fire Fox. So let’s get to it!
This first picture is a snapshot of how my Google Reader looks when I log in. As you can see on the left hand side all my subscriptions are organized in folders.
To begin making folders for your subscriptions click the small arrow to the right of the word “Subscriptions“, a menu should drop down. Select “manage subscriptions” which is located at the very bottom of the menu.
Selecting “mange subscriptions” will take you to the settings page that lists all of your current subscriptions in alphabetical order. As you can see I currently subscribe to over 500 blogs, yikes! From this page you have the option to rename a subscription, as well as delete the subscription from your Google Reader.
You can start creating folders for your subscriptions by selecting the “Add to folder/change folder option” located to the right of each subscription. If you do not have folders already included on your Google Reader the option will read “Add to Folder” and the only selection that will appear is on the drop down menu is “New Folder” .
A small box will appear allowing you to input the name of your new folder. You can go through each subscription and place them in folders according to your liking. It took me a couple of hours to go through each of my subscriptions. The hard part was actually remembering what each subscription was and putting them in the right folder.
Once you have everything organized you can view your folders by clicking the “Folders and Tags” tab, you can also rename them from this page.
Now this is the fun part, actually reading your subscriptions. Once you have all your folders situated go back to your Google Reader. You can take things one step further and set the viewing options for each of your folders. Start by clicking on a folder from your subscriptions listed to the left in your Google Reader, in the picture below I have selected the folder Fashion Bloggers. Click on “folder settings” which allows you to view the newest items first or vice verse. As you can see from below I prefer to read my subscriptions in an expanded view.
However you also have the option to view the folder contents in list view, which makes it much easier to scroll through and look for a particular blog. You can change the view by clicking the list button on the right side of your viewing pane.
Whew! I am so not a technical person but I figure this would be helpful to a lot of people that use Google Reader. If I missed anything or something isn’t clear leave me a comment below so I can answer it. I really hope this was helpful, it was fun to do something non fashion related.
14 Comments
I know some people prefer Google Reader, I never really cared for Bloglovin. I feel like I have more option with Google. And your right it is a lot of work if you read a lot of blogs, lol.
I prefer Bloglovin it's much more simple to me. I am tech savvy but since Blogluvin revamped their site it's even easier. This was veryinformative!!!
great post I use the same o google connect one that I've had from the start and bloglovin
I'm so lazy, that is a lot of work to me. lol I just use Bloglovin and you can still organize them into folders there too.
Wow, this is amazingly helpful and concise. Thanks! I use blogger, which isn'y that great, because it doesn't always show the latest post. I'll try Google Reader.
Thanks my Google reader has life again!
Ok, this is definitely going to simplify things for me. I was wondering the same thing Miss Rockwell asked. I always want to read EVERYONE in the groups blog, but it's hard keeping track of everyone. I'm sure I wont get to everyone, but this will make it easier. Thanks for the tip and instructions on how to do it. #lifesaver #blogreadingmadeeasier…. Lol
This is the best tutorial ever. Thanks so much! You just made my life that much easier. I can't wait to get it all organized. YAY! Now I'm off to prepare for the BLM chat on twitter. Talk to you soon;-)
http://thriftyandshameless.blogspot.com
this is awesome. thank you!
I can't wait to organize my reader this weekend. I was overwhelmed with the blogs I follow and it isn't nearly as close to 500! All I could see was my counter and I would just shake my head and silently whisper that I would never catch up. Organizing them will make it much easier. What I don't cover in that particular month will be marked as read and I start over monthly. You are a do it all in my book 🙂 Xo
I am totally going to carve out some time to do this! Thanks for this post love 🙂
Chioma
http://www.csevolutionofstyle.com
wow… this is fantastic. thank you for shearing.
I definitely need to get on this! Right now I'm using Bloglovin, but I may have to switch over to Google Reader. Keeping up with all these blogs is a bit overwhelming! Thanks!
This is great, I am forever organizing my google reader, I had no idea that it did all of this. Thanks!