You Can Reclaim Your Attention Right Now
First, it was the email newsletter. We all signed up like wild beavers damming up our inboxes.
Then blogs and the nefarious RSS (or Real Simple Syndication.)
“Those people” keep making it easier and easier for us to sign-up and subscribe.
Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.
Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.
Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe. Subscribe.
That was me in 2006. Truth be told, it rocked. I had well over 1,000 feeds in my RSS Reader and I kept up-to-date with many of them. Going out and checking out so many blogs (and subscribing) let me throw myself right into the blog world. I watched, read, learned and participated. Super fun.
And then I got distracted. I watched the number of unread posts in my RSS Reader skyrocket. It started to get stressful and a tad overwhelming. I couldn’t keep up.
My attention was spread too thin. The result was less involvement in the most important communities, less digesting of important information, and less opportunity to find new stuff that really mattered to me.
Your attention is precious. Everyone wants a piece of it.
Including me.
It was time for me to reclaim my attention. Here’s what I’ve done:
- Unsubscribed to 10 email newsletters. Most were on topics no longer relevant to me, so this was easy.
- Deleted all of my RSS feed subscriptions. This was very tough to do, but it had to be done. Clean slate. I will be re-subscribing to feeds again, but doing so more selectively. I also hope to organize them better. But there’s more ways to read content and interact in the blogosphere than through subscribing to every feed out there.
- Started actively using coComment to track discussions instead of subscribing to every blog I comment on.
- Added TheGoodBlogs widget to my site. It’s proving to be an active, ever-changing blogroll, which I’m finding very useful.
- Added MyBlogLog’s widget to my site. By seeing who’s visiting (and returning) it helps me get a better feel for my own blog community, and raises the profile and importance of their blogs to me. I’m also participating more in the MyBlogLog community.
- Stopped looking at my own stats as much. Obsessing over your own stats is so easy, but all it does is drain attention from useful endeavors. And it also encourages you to mindlessly surf around without accomplishing much of anything.
I’m contemplating a set of guidelines for myself to determine what blogs are most valuable to me by my activity with those blogs. One idea was to unsubscribe if I haven’t taken any form of action after reading 10 posts on someone’s blog (or to subscribe if I have taken action.) Actions might include commenting, posting my own thoughts, digging, emailing the author, passing a link around, etc. That sort of rule forces me to really read people’s writing, think about it and participate in some way. Participation is really key. Reading passively is OK, but it’s through engaging bloggers that we succeed as individuals and a community.
You have to be engaged in what you’re doing, the content you’re consuming and the communities you play in. Otherwise there’s no point.
Your attention is yours to give. Choose wisely.
Although I just suggested that you wipe out your RSS Reader, if you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing via RSS or via email. You won’t regret it!
Nice post Ben. I had to do similar things because I was spending WAY too much time with my RSS reader (too many feeds).
One comment I would make is regarding MyBlogLog. I read your blog daily and since your entire post shows up in Google Reader, I don’t always actually visit your site. However, that does not mean that I am not reading your content. Although, I should visit more often so that I can comment and be a better Instigatorblog citizen ;).
Keep it up! And I hope that our blog is one that you will include in your new RSS list :).
Hey cctech- I agree re: MyBlogLog - it’s only really effective if you visit the site which excludes RSS readers. And I know RSS readers are less likely to comment because they can consume the bulk of content in their reader…
But ultimately my goal is to be more engaging with what I read - whether through RSS or through visiting the actual blog. If I’m not commenting, posting about, linking to or doing something with the content I’m consuming, I have to question whether I need that content or not…
I know MOST people don’t comment. So what I’m saying might turn people off. And it’s not just about comments - it could be exchange a link, or really walking away with an awesome idea from reading something - that might be engagement enough…we’ll see!
Thanks, Ben, I am trying those out on my blog, thansk for the heads up.
Thanks for introducing me to some great tools. I learned early on that I needed to categorize my feeds. I have 6 general must reads and 10 must reads in my niche. The rest I save for the weekend.
I’m going to unsubscribe to those newsletters though. I always feel I’m going to miss something. Guess, I should apply the same principle that I did to TV. If it’s that important, I’ll hear about it within 3 days.
Good luck Greg! Let me know how it goes!
Nneka - I wish you luck too. Here’s hoping the owners of the email newsletters you unsubscribe from don’t come knocking on my door! *laugh*
“Stopped looking at my own stats as much. Obsessing over your own stats is so easy, but all it does is drain attention from useful endeavors. And it also encourages you to mindlessly surf around without accomplishing much of anything.”
I think this is one of the largest mistakes most web administrators as well as Bloggers make. If you obsess over the numbers, you will only kill yourself in the long run. It’s like obsessing over your Page Rank number; it’s not effective. Just go about the day to day routine, manage the blog, and most of all, enjoy your time writing and being a blogger.
Nick - you’re right. Luckily for me I still have a pagerank of 0 here so there’s no obsessing to do over that.
Stats sure are alluring though, but breaking away from them helps in the long run.
Newsletters - I only subscribe to one : a digest of a yahoo group on the development framework I use. For the most part, I’ve never understood their allure.
Feeds - I’m subscribed to 41, a quarter of which aren’t updated frequently, and another 10 which I only read part of (general news). That leaves about 25 I read regularly. That’s still too high, but I like them.
coComment - I signed up for it, but rarely use it. It’s just less complicated for me to subscribe to specific conversations I’m interest in. That’s why I like the subscribe to comments plugin so much.
TheGoodBlogs/MyBlogLog - Again, something new to learn. I tend to avoid things until I find I need them or hear about a big benefit to make them worth learning.
Stats - I’m a lot better, but staying away still needs work.
If I could get myself to ignore them except for once a week I would be happy with this area.
Rick - thanks for commenting. I do agree with you re: coComment vs. subscribing to specific conversations, but not enough blogs allow you to do so, so the result is that most of the time you can’t subscribe to specific posts…if everyone did that it’d be easier, although imagine all the emails you might get then if you do a lot of commenting!
I don’t like subscribing to comments for that very reason. Most times I’m more interested in the blogger’s response than to the entire conversation.
Unfortunately, there are a few blogs out there that default to comment subscription. Sometimes I forget to opt out and I’m flooded with comments that I’m not interested in at all. Also, there’s no way to unsubscribe from a comment feed, so when the long tail starts wagging, I get emails 3 months later from a post. Happened to me just today.
Nneka - I enjoy subscribing to comments once in awhile - oftentimes it’s on posts that don’t get too many, so it’s not terribly overwhelming. But that’s also why I’m experimenting with coComment - so I can track conversations at my leisure.
In terms of unsubscribing - there should be a way. If you’ve subscribed to comments on any of my posts you can unsubscribe. If there’s no automated way I’d try emailing the blog owner and asking them about it.
Thanks for pointing that out Ben. I did unsubscribe. Yay! Thanks
BTW, I wasn’t talking about your blog in particular. Sorry, if I implied.
Nneka - no problem. If you unsubscribed from my blog it’s OK, I won’t hold it against you. But I’m glad you’re only referring to unsubscribing from comments on a post!
Hi Ben,
Just wanted to say I’ve paid more attention to coComment since this post. I’m actually starting to like it quite a bit. It’s reduced the amount of mail in my mailbox, and I’m keeping track of the conversations I’m participating in better.
Rick - good stuff. Although I like coComment, I still forget to check it regularly. So I’m fairly certain I’m not keeping up with conversations as much as I should…but even coComment requires you to check something, scan through to find recent comments, etc. I need a brain transmission device that tells me when comments are posted, without spamming my brain.
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