Stressing over unread counts
I am an avid Google Reader user and have been so for years, but lately, it had become a chore.I subscribe to hundreds of feeds across a wide range of topics that I am interested in. I don’t read them all every day, of course, since I have a job and a life and a need for eating and sleeping.
I treat Google Reader like a personal library, tailored specifically to my interests. Some of my feeds literally have over 1000 unread items. And instead of being excited about that, of having gobs of information — on stuff I am interested in — to browse through, it was freaking me out. Reader had stopped becoming a library and turned into a task list.
The fix, as it turns out, was simple: turn off unread counts. The effect on my stress level has been remarkable.
I still have my “Daily” feed list that I try to go through, well, daily. But now, everything else just waits there for me, quietly sitting there until I have that spare moment to catch up on, well, whatever. Ahh, so nice.
