I actually use the groups to control my feeds. If you do a good job about naming them, and organize your folders so that he most important ones to you (however you determine that) are at the top, you can just work your way down through them with your spacebar as you have time.

Less time? start from the top and only read a few.

More time? Start from the top anyway and read further down into your list.

Really bored? You might get to the bottom. (Though I rarelly do….)

A screenshot of my folders:

http://static.flickr.com/29/52443725_141cf6c851_m.jpg

Well the bottom line is that we all use groups to organize feeds. I tend to prioritize feeds into several groups.

1) Entertainment - this is the group I read least, only if I have free time after ready all the rest of my groups. 2) Photoblogs - this is obviously something that can be put off and I read these as a relaxation technique (I highly recommend bluejake.com and slower.net by the way - both feature some excellent photography). 3) News - I tend to do a fair amount of surfing in interstitial time, so often times i don’t even need to read this group, just go through it and mark as read the sites I already read during the day anyways.

Everything else I keep at the top level so I can see when people post new things. Obviously 43F is right there at the very top, well actually Justin Frankel’s blog (of Winamp fame - http://www.1014.org/blog/) and “…she’s a flight risk…” (http://shes.aflightrisk.org/) are above 43 Folders because its ordered alphabetically.

In any case, I think I will definitely implement this “Probation” group, its a very good idea!

http://www.newsburst.com/

I have a category for frequently updated/consistently interesting blogs that I read daily (i.e. 43folders), followed by a few conceptual groupings (i.e. flickr contacts, friends’ livejournals). The rest of the blogs (of which there are by now an obscene number) get randomly assigned to a set of arbitrary chunks. Lately I have started limiting myself to one chunk a day. For instance, today I might check in on the activity in Chunk 1. Tomorrow Chunk 2…and so on until I am back to Chunk 1. I currently have five chunks, each with a bite sized sampling of content.

I went this route mainly because I got tired of trying to meticulously catalog each blog (does this belong in lifehack/productivity or maybe there…well really it is both…). It has the added benefit of curbing my reading habbits (remember: one chunk a day) so I don’t waste an entire afternoon trying to slog through all 400 unread entries. Also, it somehow seems more exciting sifting through a random assortment every day. It’s like rummaging through that $5.50 dump-bin at Wal-Mart and discovering, beneath all the Dolph Lundgren dvds, the lone copy of Blade Runner.

My solution: I’ve stopped opening Net News Wire ever, and only read feeds I’m subscribed to through LJ [though those are starting to pile up now]. Otherwise, I’ve gone back to actually visiting the blogs via browser on the rare occasion when I’m bored to death and remember that they exist. Retro, I know, but I just couldn’t deal with the 2,000 new posts anymore [not counting my ‘bowser’ folder on NNW, damn everyone for being so interesting].

A little self-restraint and a lot of folders. However, the most useful tip is something I only recently discovered. In Bloglines, you have the choice of displaying feeds by complete entry, summary or title. I’ve found that for frequently updated feeds (such as AskMetafilter or Boing Boing), it helps a lot to show only the title of posts. That way I can scroll down through the feed in a flash and expand the ones that are of interest to me.

I recently switched from Bloglines to SearchFox (rss.searchfox.com), and it’s saving me a ton of time. It’s a “personalized” reader that learns your reading habits and puts the more interesting/useful stuff at the top. Matter of fact, this post was near the top of my list today. :)

Findory (findory.com) is similar — the “Favorites” section is a personalized RSS reader. I haven’t used this one much, but I’ve heard good things.

Too many nano pictures?

Thats whack hack. RSS feeds are out of control, but none come close to the amount of The Nano pictures that are poping up all over the internet.

Its crazy

I just limit myself to 20 Feeds.

If I subscribe to a new one I have to bump one off the list… for ever… makes sure that the new one is a goodie!

If I can not limit myself to 20 feeds then I figure I should just give up trying to control myself… I obviously don’t want to be productive.

I also try to turn my reader on only when I’m in the mood for surfing… ie after my work is done… never during the day.

Of course I fail miserably… but it is a conscious action to turn it on… I’d be giving up all hope if I kept it on 24/7…