TST: Use a Reader

The Bible tells us to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:15-17), so I'm going to be posting tips every Tuesday on things you can do to save time. Unlike most resources, we all get the same amount of time, but we have to decide how we're going to spend it. If you have anything that you do to save time that you'd like to share, just let me know and I'll add them to the list.


Today's tip is to use an RSS Reader to surf the Internet with more speed and precision. I personally use Google Reader (www.google.com/reader).



An RSS reader (a.k.a. Atom or Feed Reader) takes info from a website and plugs it into individual articles that are easy to read and quick to skim through.


For example, I have subscribed to several blogs (you can see part of my Blogroll on the right sidebar). Whenever a post is made to one of those blogs, Google Reader creates it into a new article to read. After it's been read, it no longer shows up on my list to read. Google Reader uses the same Read/Unread system that most email services do, except that Google Reader will hide the articles once they are "Read". This means that whenever I log in to Google Reader, I am guaranteed to only be reading and perusing articles I haven't read before.


An RSS Reader is NOT only for reading blogs. Any popular website will have an RSS feed as well, such as USAToday (broken into the different sections of the paper), Amazon (for Gold Box Deals), and ESPN (broken down by authors and/or sports). That means that whenever one of those websites posts are article I haven't read yet, I get a copy in Google Reader.


How does this save time? For one, I don't have to visit through every one of those websites every day looking for stuff I haven't read before. Instead of having to click on a bookmark for each individual blog, news site, or whatever, I can just go to Google Reader and get it all at one time.


It also saves me time because I now have more precision in my web browsing. If I want to read Sports, I click on my Sports label in Google Reader, and I only get websites that I have labeled as Sports. If I don't have time to read all the articles on Deals, I just click on Deals and then mark them all as Read.


As far as RSS Readers go, I highly recommend Google Reader because it's web based, so you can log into it from anywhere (and you aren't taking up more space on your hard drive). They also let you Share articles, which you can have linked to your Facebook account (or friends using Google Reader) and they all see the article too. If none of your friends use Google Reader, there's also an option to email the article to them, which links directly to your Google Contacts. Very handy.


If you'd like more information on RSS feeds, I recommend visiting the Google Reader website (www.google.com/reader), which obviously concentrates on Google Reader itself, but also has good information on RSS and Atom feeds in general.