I actually just recently (as in last week) resurrected my Feedly account. Since it's a tool we talk about in training sessions at work I thought I'd engage with it a bit more after having quit using my account months ago. In the process of reworking my workflows and breaking bad digital habits, I've found using Feedly to keep up with news and blogs keeps me away from more distracting social media sites. It means I actually read articles that interest me and once I've read them they don't appear again. On Feedly I tend to skim the new stories a few times per day, and if something interests me I'll either read it then and there if I have time or save it for later if I don't. I've also been using the knowledge boards as a way of tagging and saving articles I think I might want to read again or refer to in teaching or a blog post, for example. As soon as I've browsed the headlines in a topic I mark all as read so that they disappear from my feed, assuming that if it didn't catch my attention then, it won't later. This gives the same feeling of victory as getting to Inbox Zero and I enjoy how little time it takes me to get there.
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| Behold my dragon hoard of information: My Feedly account, featuring a familiar face. |
In addition to RSS feeds, I also teach academics and postgraduate students about setting up alerts on Google Scholar, Scopus and/or Web of Science for favourite authors, sources or searches so that new content is brought directly to your inbox. I have done this myself but have yet to reap any benefit from the seeds I've sown. I admit I've also not gotten the hang of Pocket yet either. I've installed it and I'm trying to use it, but I'd rather use a reference manager to grab things for work or study, while non-work articles get read the day the tab is opened or else I assume I wasn't that interested. I'm going to give Pocket another honest try, though!
I suppose the take home point is that all of these tools are only as good as the effort you put in to customising them and using them regularly. I've definitely incorporated Feedly into my daily workflow, but I'm still seeing what else works.
How about you? What do you use to gather and read new information on your favourite topics?
The infinite scroll of information is a definite problem when it comes to constantly refreshing news, and Feedly is no exception so thanks for sharing that particular aspect of it. Also, I see what you mean with Pocket vs a reference manager but as you said, it depends how you use and customise them all.
ReplyDeleteI do find that Facebook's relatively new save function is a handy way of capturing stuff before FB mysteriously refreshes itself (especially on my phone) and I lose said link forever. Liking stuff on Twitter sort of does the same thing but then you're left with a huge list of stuff. Not sure how to solve that other than using stuff like Pocket.
Good points! As I say, I'll try it again and see how I get along. At the moment it just doesn't feel like it fills a need of mine but I'll still recommend it for situations like the ones you mentioned!
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