This is a great idea. I’ll share my similar RSS hack: I’ve replaced my RSS reader with a simple list of sites I’d like to keep reading. No more subscriptions!

It used to be that I’d fire up NetNewsWire and poof!—thirty minutes or even an hour would slip away. Now I keep a big list of sites in a text file, and when I feel like catching up on the web, I look through the list, visit a site or two, and browse. I ‘subscribe’ to a site by appending it to the file with QuickSilver. It’s just like your magazine subscription, Merlin: I now only read a site when the mood strikes, rather than when new content is posted, and instead of feeling like another pile to deal with the web is a little more under my own control. Much simpler, much faster, much smaller commitment of time and mental space.

I got the idea for this when, for some reason, NNW stopped downloading feeds and became just a list of bookmarks. I still haven’t bothered troubleshooting it because I find this method so much more manageable!

“I’m not suggesting you become a hermit or an ascetic or move into a mountaintop cave”

It is sounding more and more appealing, though…

The $$$ you save can also build up a lot faster than you’d imagine. In a year you might even have a pile of loot sufficent enough to head off to New Zealand (or some other exotic local). I have an Amazon (the reall one!) fund that I’m working on now. Once I get through my current list on Netflix it is going bye bye for a while. [I’d cancel it now ut I HAVE to see Soylent Green one more time!]

Funny that you should suggest this on the same day I did that very thing…

This morning I woke up with a profound desire to say goodbye to spectator sports for a while. I live in Seattle, so I will watch the Seahawks games for as long as they last in the playoffs, but ESPN.com, local sports sections, baseball statistics blogs … those things are going in the trash for one month, and then I’ll re-evaluate. I came to this decision after watching a college bowl game involving two teams that meant nothing to me personally or financially, and yet the outcome of which managed to upset me. Bah — not worth it. Better to take a step back and see what life is like without it.

[…] Modest Change: Cancel something | 43 Folders. […]

One variant could be “for every new thing you want to do/read etc, cancel something else instead.”

One variant could be “for every new thing you want to do/read etc, cancel something else instead.

I have a couple friends that do that with possessions; nothing new without getting rid of something old. Pretty elegant idea.

(Orthogonal: 83 problems)

Several things to add to Merlin’s excellent suggestions: 1. Cancel junk mail (DMA list helps a little) and register for the Do Not Call List. This helps in the U.S., what works elsewhere? 2. Use the local library for video rather than Netflix. Cheaper and less demanding. Some libraries allow you to view and order NEW videos/CDs. 3. Forgo instant messages (Merlin: why didn’t you add this?) 4. In my opinion, if you have a choice between a forum available by RSS and mailing list, chose the RSS. For example the 43Google forum can be more rapidly scanned by an RSS than by a mailing list. Do you agree?

Amen! I remember using frequent flier miles one year to subscribe to some magazines I was interested in. Yeah, the subscription was free, but my time and life are worth something (if only to me!).

RSS:

Really Savvy Squanderer

Some things I’ve done:

Cut Netflix down to the one-at-a-time 9.95/month sub. That way we have a movie for Friday night, but not a pile of to-be-watched. Still cheaper and easier than renting at the store.

Cut down on RSS feeds, use Firefox Bookmarks feature Open in Tabs to build a user controlled read-on-the-weekends list. I have one for “New.” Sites really have to prove their worth to move from there to the feed.

Never buy more than one book or CD or DVD at a time. (One will always become your favorite and the others will be unjustly ignored.) Only buy DVDs of movies you’ve seen twice and would like to see again.

I hate subscriptions to magazines. I enjoy reading Scientific American, The Economist, Newsweek and New Scientist. I subscribe to none of them. Every time I fly somewhere I buy at least one at the airport and read them on the plane. That way they stay as “treat” reading, rather than something else for the “to read” pile.

I’ve got the same problem with Land Rover magazines: I subscribe to one, and get two more free because I (used to) advertise with them. Now that I get three each month, I don’t even read the one I pay for!

I’ve just started on the RSS feed/bloglines thing. It’s still fun, cool and groovy at the moment, but I need a better reader. I’m seriously thinking of investing in a Libretto as a ultra-portable way of reading online content when I have a spare few minutes. The PDA is too small for that purpose.

This is a great idea. Like you said, little things add up and next thing it’s a mountain of stuff to deal with. Thanks for pointing out the obvious as sometimes the simplest and obvious solution is the one that is commonly overlooked.

Now off to delete the RSS feed for 43folders.com. Just kidding. It’s a keeper! ;)

All excellent. If you’ve already cut these back to the minimum, here are some other ideas: frequent flyer accounts, mediocre investments, sports equipment, store membership cards, and jerks.

Seriously — if someone in your life has turned into a real a******, cancel your obligation to them and let the relationship go (gently, of course).

Sounds callous but it is a lot easier than trying to change the person.

Something I was unaware of until recently: you can opt out of prescreened credit and insurance offers through snail mail. Receiving something from Capital Uno every other day was making me crazy. Now I have a little more peace at the mailbox and less garbage in my green circular file. FTC’s webpage on opting out.

ahh - “Keep life simple and you will conserve enough time and energy to enjoy it.” - this quote comes from one of my favorite articles titled “The High Cost of Complexity”. If you liked this lifehack, you will enjoy the following:

http://urlx.org/taylorintime.com/8d09

Thanks to Adelphia’s lousy service and then upping my cable bill, I will be going back to basic cable. Ahh…less channels, less time wasting away searching for something good to watch on TV. And if you ever miss a show, you can find and download it from the web or even buy the entire series on Amazon!

I to regret my many magazine subscriptions. Time to start canceling.

Thanks for this little article. I have often thought about this same problem. I notice that all the comments to this article are written in the first three hours after it’s posting. So, many have been excitingly watching the RSS threads.

One way to reduce time wasted on RSS and emails is do learn to read faster (www.infmind.com) and not the least to check RSS and mail less frequently, like every other hour for the RSS and 15 to 20 minutes for the mail. That way one can browse quickly to check what is worth reading all in one trip instead of constantly spending time to check if one has gotten something interesting to waste time on.

Great advice. I created a folder in my newsreader for “infrequent” items. I don’t look at those feeds regularly and don’t feel like I’m missing out, but if I’m bored and have an hour (or a few) to spare, I can look at those sites and see only content I haven’t looked at before (and don’t have to go searching for those sites in a clunky bookmarks list).

I am clearly a hopeless Luddite, as I simply bookmark the sites I’m interested in, in a folder called “Reading.” Then I visit whichever ones strike my whim on my two-minute breaks from 10+2 dashes. (10+2 basically rules my life.)

You said it to a tee regarding magazine and newspaper subscriptions! I’ve been on a weekend-only newspaper subscription for a long time now. Several times the paper tried to upgrade my subscription, and every time I took the deal, I regretted having all those unread papers lying around the house and then going to the recycle bin still unread. Compared to online news, reading the paper is like reading a history book; it’s so… old! The good thing about the weekend papers (Fri. to Sun.) is all the stuff on local happenings and, of course, coupons.

A Modest proposal this dumping stuff, what if?

For every new law(s) proposed by congress, a requirement would be to “dump” two older ones. Eh?

You guys forgot to mention, the cellphone… i think i’m about to throw it out..

Can’t Get Enough of 43 Folders

43 Folders is “Merlin Mann’s site about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better.” And I am thouroughly enjoying his advice, viewpoint and take on “getting things done.” In fact, he has…

I got home from a Christmas ski vacation and immediately wrote an e-mail to sell my fantasy football team. I’d lost my second Super Bowl in a row, and realized… oh my god, I actually cared that I lost a fantasy football championship! Not only that, but I spent a good part of my Christmas vacation trying to find stats, a place to watch the games, etc… instead of enjoying the trip.

It wasn’t that I actually spent a lot of time on it every week. It was a welcome diversion. Now though, I have one less thing to worry about. No more waiver-wire deadlines to stress about. And I’ll probably have a good chunk of my Sundays back…

Feels so goooood.

Take a two-week break from 43 Folders. It’s cool; we’ll be fine.

Of course, this only works if you’re not also subscribed to delicious/popular since every post ends up there anyway :-)

First post, love this thread. Had already been thinking about cancelling a few things—guess it’s the new year. Yesterday froze a gym membership I wasn’t using much (I have two, kept the cheap one at work) and just now put my cable on a diet - about $16 a month for basic. I’ll read more books and surf channels less. What pathetic, overfed Americans some of us are.

This may be the push I needed to go ahead and get rid of some “free” junk that’s been costing me time and mental space. I’m subscribed to at least two mailing lists that I haven’t read in at least a year, and I’ve noticed more and more podcasts that I skip past when they come up on my iPod (not 43folders, though ;). Now if only there was a polite way of canceling that magazine subscription I was given as a not-so-thoughtful Christmas present…

And yes, I need to go ahead and put myself on the Do Not Call Registry, as well as the FTC thing KJ Double-You pointed out above.

RSS is a nightmare. Meant to make our life easier, but sent my stress levels sky-rocketing until I wiped over half my feeds - the BBC news feed puts out about a hundred new stories a day! But RSS is Great for blogs that only add one or two new posts a day, or less. And it is fantastic for Flickr - get feeds by person, tag etc. I hear the ‘nude’ tag provides a particularly popular feed…

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