Refresh Your RSS Reader
Today’s tip is part tech, part research. It’s a simple reminder to give a little love to your RSS reader.
(You ARE using an RSS reader, aren’t you? You’re not? Here’s a nice primer on why RSS is more important than ever in 2018.)
Whether you use Feedly, Inoreader, The Old Reader (my personal favourite) or something else, why not take a few minutes to check whether you’ve got any dead/defunct feeds among your subscriptions.
If a feed is dead or hasn’t updated in a really long time, does that mean the site is no longer publishing? Maybe the blog or news area got moved and the feed address changed, so you’re no longer getting updates from that site?
Investigate the source site and make sure you’re not missing anything you thought you were still getting.
While you’re at it, take a look at all your subscriptions and ask yourself whether each one is still useful to you.
Then ask yourself whether there are sites you’re NOT following, but could be. Do you have email subscriptions that could be replaced with RSS subscriptions, thereby reducing the email that accumulates in your inbox?
Lastly, consider whether upgrading your reader might be money well spent. Generally, paid accounts will let you subscribe to more feeds and give you more control over how you organize them, and for usually no more than the cost of a cup of coffee per month. Many readers give a choice of annual or monthly payment options.
Got a tested-and-true method for keeping your reader working optimally? Let me know in the comments!
Start the discussion!