52. Too Much Info - Avoiding Overload

This Picture = Immediate Conviction

I am guilty of reading many different blogs and articles online. In an age where an immeasurable wealth of knowledge is available at the click of a button I would feel irresponsible to let it all go to waste. I'm an avid fan of RSS and Google Reader is in my top five visited sites. But today I came across this picture and had a mini-epiphany: I am receiving way too much information to take in and process. After having consumed all of the recurring blogs, articles, news, and the many books I am required to read for school I have come to a startling discovery. In the last month, I've only spend about 2 hours reading books that I want to. Considering that I've spoken several times before on my desire to read more books, I am not content with this result. I decided that I have to do something, and I have to do it fast.

Every few days my RSS reader is backed up with articles to look at. I seriously have anywhere between 50-100 unread items at any given time. Right now, after having read through it for a few hours today, I still have 52 unread. Yikes.

A few weeks ago I read an article from Zen Habits that encouraged the reader to delete every RSS feed they received. If after a little while the updates are missed, then sign back up for them. They even encouraged deleting the feed to their own site. Pretty gutsy. I'm taking their advice... mostly. There are some feeds I have that I will keep because they are the blogs of personal friends, or I already know that I'd miss them. I'm going to either go through the 52 unread and read them or mark them read so I can start with a clean slate. Then I'm going to limit the amount of time I spend reading online. I'm way too attached to my computer anyhow.

Part two of this plan: re-visit my beloved reading list, grab a great book, and go read it somewhere in the sunshine. What about you? What do you do to make sure you are getting great information, but not being overwhelmed by too much of it? It seems like such a delicate balance... thoughts?