Just before I started this blog I “discovered” RSS feeds, google reader, and all SORTS of interesting thinking.  LOVE it.  But it is a hopeless waste of time if I’m not careful. 

I can’t bring myself to completely drop the feeds; many have done important things for my thinking, my finances and my emotional stability.  However I did spend a bit of time cleaning my RSS house today.

There are a lot of academic blogs that I adore; faculty and graduate students talking about their experiences that has helped me really think about both academic and emotional issues.  There are a few consumer/finance blogs that have given me good information (consumerist.com is definitely one of the best).  I read a pile of organization and GTD blogs, and a couple of  philosophy blogs as well.

But today I dropped more than half of my list.  The only category that escaped pruning was academic blogs because, frankly, most of those are pretty low-traffic.  On the other hand I trimmed the organization, finance, religion, and a few others very heavily.

The only way I can do everything I need to over the next few months is by focusing on things that are important, but that doesn’t mean dropping things entirely.  It is important for my thinking to be exposed to other ideas and I am reluctant to give it up.

However the ones I don’t have time for are gone.  The ones with a bad signal to noise ratio are gone.  And some of the ones that are iffy are now in a category of their own that I can “mark all as read” if I don’t have time.

I’m going to trim even more over time, but I’m feeling good about this first step.  I want to get the best use of my time, andthat includes recreational blog-reading time.