I’ve learned to be fairly ruthless about what I let arrive in my email inbox. It’s my Rule #1 of email management (there’s more – if you’re curious you can get the free guide here).
Today it occurred to me, that my blogroll deserved the same treatment.
As I was adding The Fluent Self blog written by habits educator Havi Brooks – someone I’m thrilled to have discovered – I realized just how NOT thrilled I was by other blogs in my feed.
Out went Lifehacker. Good blog, but the number of posts is overwhelming and I’m just not enough of a techno-geek for this to be useful. And what’s the point when “pen and paper” always wins surveys of the best to-do list manager or note-taking tool? [ There's something ironic about this that just cracks me up. If you feel pressured to, say, get a PDA - just remember the most technical among us aren't using one either. ]
Out went all the blogs that aren’t posted to regularly. Out went everything that irritated or confused. Out went everything that was good, but had never inspired me enough to link to it. Basically, I just kept the blogs where I’m truly pleased to find a new post: Yay! I get to read what so-and-so has to say today.
I got my blogroll down to a manageable ten. Phew! does that feel better…
Oh, how awesome. And how incredibly … appropriate? timely? bizarre?
Because this morning my plan was actually to spend some time doing the same kind of filtering (but of blogs I subscribe to) and removing stuff from the feed that is either non-existent or overwhelming. It feels really freeing, more so than I’d imagined.
And then I saw this! So I’m flattered that you’re choosing me and my duck to be part of your list of “keepers” … and thank you so much for the permission to keep clearing out to make room for the stuff that I find inspiring or that speaks to me for whatever reason. Yay!
Havi -
Thanks! As flattered as you may be to be among my “keepers,” I am even more flattered that my post was of some help and inspiration to *you*. [True confession: I'm having a bit of a star-struck blog moment here.]
So happy purging! It really does feel good to give yourself permission to not even *try* to know everything everyone has to say, doesn’t it?