I was in need of help. I had subscribed to every RSS feed I found – blogs, news sites, Yahoo Search results. You name it, I subscribed to it. I suffered under an avalanche of new posts/items on a daily basis. I had close to 300 subscribed feeds. It was out of hand. But I couldn’t resist! I read them religiously, afraid that I’d miss something. Most of the time, it wasn’t even enjoyable — I was looking for “material” to blog about. A post here or there that others might have missed would be my next “big post.” But I realized my posting activity (and just about all other activity) was suffering because I was too busy “cleaning out my unreads.” I was so worried I’d miss something that I was simply spinning my wheels. So I decided to whittle down those feeds, to unshackle myself from Bloglines.
I’ve completed my first pass through, removing a lot of feeds (junk and otherwise) and I’ve worked it down to about 130 feeds. Another pass could get me under 100 feeds. It wasn’t easy. Even as I was removing them from my list, I wondered what I’d miss after they were gone. I took out a couple big ones (Digg and Engadget) but I figured if there was something of value there, someone else would pick it up. I just couldn’t keep up with everything that was getting posted. If every feed averaged 3 posts a day, that was close to 1,000 new items a day. It was a lot more than that. That’s simply too much.
After I worked out of that funk, I turned my attention to my collection of unplayed games.
I came to the realization that I simply won’t get to every game I currently have. Games like Viewtiful Joe 2 and Metal Gear: The Twin Snakes sit on my shelf, unplayed, while I spend my third week with Dead Rising. I know that I’m missing out on some great gaming, but I just can’t do it all. With next generation upon us and the excellent DS library growing, I simply can’t get to everything. I still couldn’t bring myself to do something about it. Just like my stack of feeds, I was afraid I’d miss something. With more demands on my free time (real job, kids, golfing) I simply can’t can’t get to it all. I’m not a 40-hour gamer anymore.
So while I used to operate under the delusion that some day I’d get to it all, I realize it’s simply not doable. And worrying about it didn’t do any good. In fact, it probably made procrastinating even easier. So after deciding to cull my “daily reading,” I will also take a hard look at my library. I’m not sure what I’ll do with some of my games that I have yet to play, but I no longer look at them, there on the shelf, and feel guilty. I don’t know if my “Queue” of games will ever exist. I don’t need to feel like I have to play them all. Some I’ll get to, at some time, but others will probably never be played. They’ve got to go.
A weight has been lifted. And I feel free!
virtuadept says
Hey, I know your pain. I went through a phase like that with Bloglines where I had like 200 feeds or something. It was insane. Now I just subscribe to blogs of people that seem interesting and to a couple of gaming news sites.
I also have a bajillion games that I’ll never get around to playing. I don’t worry about it, I just play what I have time for. I guess in some respects I’m more of a game collector than a game player, not sure if that is cool or not, but I do play some of them, I just don’t seem to have enough time to get to them all, much less finish them all.
If you are looking to get rid of those extra games you should take a look at GameTZ: http://www.gametz.com
GameTZ has been around for like 10 years or so and has a wonderful community of game traders. The guy that runs it “Bill” is very cool, and he has done a great job making a really good user interface for game traders. It has a matching service thing to match your wanted games with other people’s availables. He’s got some really nice forums where you can advertise games for sale if you’re just looking to get rid of them. There is a really good feedback and ratings system so that you can find traders who have an excellent reputation and not have to worry about getting scammed. The offer system is good which lets you keep a written record of who offered whom what and track the progress of the trade from beginning to end. This is a site I visit daily, it’s just really good.
Lastly, if you really want to unload Twin Snakes I’m looking for a copy of it. Email me an offer if you want. 🙂
covert.c. says
Wow, I was cleaning up my own “150+ bloglines problem” when I saw this post! Well said, instead of sorting maybe I’ll do some serious trimming.
Trouble is, no one sends shit to me. I’m usually the finder, and that’s a hard habit to break from! Any recommendations?
Cheers,
Craig
Tony says
virtuadept – I remember checking out the GameTZ site a while ago but never went further than that. I’ll have to check it out. I only have the disks for Twin Snakes, but I’ll drop you a note off-line.
covert – if you can find stuff to post, I say keep on posting. My surfing time has been reduced and I don’t have time to look for stuff like I used to. My only recommendation is that trimming your subs to a bear minimum is a good place to start.
Flamingsquirrel says
I have a very easy solutoin to your problem…
Go amish and sell all you games/consles to me…for $5
Brinstar says
I’ve been trying to trim my Bloglines subscriptions, too. I was at 130 at some point, and I’m now at around 100 or so. I need to do more trimming. It really is ridiculous how much time I spend reading feeds, or deleting feeds because I can’t read them all. I haven’t read my webcomics for months!
Tony says
Brin – My problem was I’d find a site that I wanted to follow but then never really read much from most of the sites I’d subscribed to. I’m moving some of my less visited sites elsewhere, maybe delicious, and then maintain a smaller list on bloglines. I’ve got to keep it manageable.