Are you one of those people who feels compelled to read every story that comes through your RSS reader? Do you find yourself spending more time in Google Reader, Feedly, or some other RSS tool than you should.  It occurred to me recently that I might be able to apply the GTD concept of “processing to zero” to my RSS reader inbox.  So I thought I would share some of the initial ideas that I’ve been using for the past few weeks to mitigate wasted time and see if they reverberated with anyone else.

Since I have a full time job, I don’t have a lot of time to spend sifting through the barrage of RSS articles that come in on a daily basis.  I find it’s more information than I care to deal with on a daily basis.  Sometimes it seems downright futile to try and get the unread count to zero.  But I think that recognizing subtle differences between an email inbox and an RSS inbox might help better manage the amount of information you’re actually processing in full.

The RSS inbox: how is it different from an email inbox?

For starters, the more RSS feeds you subscribe to the more posts you will get.  So make sure that you’re subscribed to feeds that give relevant information for you.  If not, unsubscribe.  The type of sources you subscribe to can also affect the amount of information that lands in your RSS inbox.  Blogs or news sources can churn out magnitudes more content per day than a private blog with a single author.   Subscribing to too many of the high-volume feeds can fill up your RSS inbox very quickly.  So limit the number of high volume feeds to 1 or 2 if possible.  Let’s take a look at what we can do to process all of the information more efficiently

1. Determine your goal

The relevance of these methods depends on who you are and what you’re trying to get out of the information flowing into your RSS reader.  If you’re just casually trying to keep up to date with the latest technology trends or news then you may want to easy back on the throttle of a clockwork system like I’ve described.  However, if you’re a blogger or reading information relevant to your job you may want to take it very seriously so that you get a good return on your investment (i.e. that previous time we never have enough of).   If you’re in the first group then you may take these tips more lightly than if you’re in the second group.  Decide what type of RSS user you are.

2. Take it or leave it

For the sake of this article, let’s suppose you’re an average developer who uses an RSS reader.  There are probably more new posts coming into your RSS reader than your email inbox.  Chances are that a good chunk of the information flowing in has less bearing on your success from day to day as a developer.  So you could potentially ignore quite a bit of it and save your time for only the articles that you know will be of interest.  This means that you are not obligated to read everything. I know, this can be hard!  But just like GTD has a maximum of 2 minutes to process each task we should set a fixed amount of time per post or article.  30 seconds or less should be sufficient to read the title and the description or first few paragraphs to get an idea for whether or not the article meets our internal definition definition of “interesting” or “relevant”.  If it doesn’t pass, move on.

3. Set your limits

Now how do we process what we think is potentially relevant?  Give yourself a set amount of time per day to process through actionables. To keep yourself from falling into the black hole of reading articles all day use a timer or some reminder to let you know when time is up and move on to whatever else you do.  It may also be a good idea to schedule the time you process the same every day.  Put it on your calendar.  Whatever.  Just be consistent and you will reinforce the habit.

4. Process once per day

While you’re processing or reading through actionables more stuff is going to keep pouring in.  Avoid the temptation to try and keep up with the constant flow of information.  Process through your feeds one by one and once you’re done, stop.  Don’t go back and try to catch up on what happened in the last 3-5 minutes.  That’s what tomorrow is for.

5. Use keyboard shortcuts

I’m a big fan of keyboard shortcuts and use them whenever I can.  In fact, I’ve been known to choose applications based on whether they support keyboard shortcuts or not.  Find a reader that supports keyboard shortcuts and you’ll find you can process quicker and more efficiently.

As someone who practices GTD for email and other tasks daily (I try my best anyways), this type of system maps well onto RSS readers.  Others may think it’s overkill.  I’m still working it out myself but I’ve definitely noticed improvements in the last several months from staying within the guidelines I’ve described.  Do you find this system may be useful for you as well? Are already practicing a similar approach?  Or do you think it’s overkill?  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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• 3 ways to improve GTD implementations

Firefox search bar

I think the search bar is fantastic feature of Firefox.  However, I have found that pointing and clicking to change search engines is a real pain.  I’ll show you how you can switch search engines with lightning speed using some simple keyboard shortcuts.

Highlight the search bar

You can highlight the search bar by pressing Cmd-K (Mac)  or Ctrl-K (Win).  Once it’s highlighted type your search terms and hit Enter to perform the search with the selected search engine.

Change search engines

A simple way to change the search engine is to press Cmd-Up/Cmd-Down (Mac) or Ctrl-Up/Ctrl-Down (Win).  This will change the search engine icon to the left of the search field.  It’s quick but it’s sometimes hard to tell what the search engine is just by the icon.  Sure, after a while you’ll remember which is which but I’m not a huge fan.  This is where the next shortcut comes in handy.

Change search engines the lazy and efficient way

If you’d rather do a find-as-you-type style search over the search engines you can press Opt-Up/Opt-Down (Mac) or  Alt-Up/Alt-Down (Win).  This will pop up the list of search engines as if you’d clicked on the search engine icon with the mouse.  Now type the first letter of the search engine you want to change to and it will automatically be highlighted.  If you have more than one search engine that begins with the same first letter just keep pressing the same letter key until you’ve highlighted the one you want.  Press Enter to select and engine.

Search bar with engine list expanded

Reordering search engines. keep most used at the top and least used at the bottom.

It might be helpful to keep your most used search engines at the top of the list for easier navigation.  To reorder the search engine list, click on the search engine icon to expose the drop-down list (or use one of the keyboard shortcuts described above).  Click on Manage Search Engines.  Drag the engines around to arrange them as you like.

Wordpress note

I’m using the Advanced TinyMCE editor in Wordpress and Cmd-K is either bound to some action inside the editor or simply doesn’t work when your cursor is inside the editor field.  Press Tab to change the focus and then press Cmd-K to activate the search bar field.

Gmail drag-and-drop labels

Today the Gmail team quietly made a minor change in its interface with respect to labels.  The label panel moved to a more permanent position below the Inbox and Sent Mail “folders” and above Contacts and Tasks.  The list of labels has also been shortened, allowing a user to drag and drop more frequently used labels in and out of the list.  Emails can now be dragged and dropped on top of labels like a more traditional thick client email system such as Outlook or Thunderbird.

I first noticed something suspicious today when my label list, normally on the right side of the interface thanks to a Gmail Labs tweak, moved to the left side.  After trying several times to move it back to the right side I gave up.  I figured there was a glitch or a bug or they simply disabled the tweak.  When I checked my mail tonight I got a very helpful bubble that explained the changes.  This may give some insight into how the team phased the change in to the interface, disabling the tweak first, then rolling out the update.  I’m intrigued by their update model.

When my wife and I decide to go out to eat, I’m usually the one forced to make the decision of where to go. When I’m not feeling particular I try to push the decision back to her. Invariably though, she will ask me to give her some choices first. This process usually consists of me racking my brain for several minutes, some minor bickering about who usually makes the decisions on where to go, and ends a forced decision and neither of us too happy about how we got there.

It dawned on me today that I should keep a list of favorite restaurants, categorized by location to make this process a little less stressful. So, if I’m up North of town I can pull up my “Restaurants North” list and quickly be able to rattle off 3 or 4 choices. Within each list it is also helpful to group restaurants by how healthy they are. Currently my wife and I are trying to eat better so being able to go directly to the list of all the healthy restaurants would make the process even quicker. The lists can easily be kept in any cell phone these days using a simple notepad application.

How do you keep your favorite dining locations organized?

I am just finished reading the bestselling book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. While I like much of the GTD system, and I’ve actually used a lot of the GTD tricks for a couple of years now, I feel like it’s a very heavy system to use, especially for someone who uses the paper-based system described in the book. I’m still having trouble picturing the entire system in my head (something that is crucial is one is to implement and sustain it on a dialy basis).

A lot of people I’ve talked to who have either read (or started and never finished) Allen’s book have said that the system is too complex, especially when trying to set up the system from scratch. Without a productivity coach sitting beside you making sure you’ve emptied everything from your brain into your system I can’t imagine finding the time to completely implement the system over the course of a weekend. While I think GTD definitely has merit (it’s obviously been successful based on the anecdotes and volume sales if it’s a national bestseller), I think it would benefit from the following suggestions to increase its simplicity.

1. Digital GTD. In the digital age, more emphasis should be placed on a digital GTD solution. I realize that some people may not have such a multitude of actions so as to warrant a digital system but those who do should really consider one. The ability to prioritize tasks, in my opinion, is crucial when you have a large amount of tasks. Paper or note software on a PDA/Smartphone can be cumbersome. There are now many FREE digital GTD systems online that are actually quite good, generally providing some sort of dashboard that let’s you see a lot of information at once. Some will even calculate suggestions for “Next Action” items for you. I use Toodledo.com on a daily basis. In fact, I think Toodledo is so good I just upgraded to the Pro account for a mere $15/yr so that I can do things like add subtasks and see task completion metrics. There are also other free systems out there like Remember the Milk and Vitalist that are also capable. A good comparison of many of the online GTD systems is located here.
2. Tighter integration with email systems. This is a big one in my opinion. While I use Toodledo to manage all of my tasks, I still have email that I have to manage as well as a separate system. I’m always thinking “wouldn’t it be great if I could just integrate Toodledo into Gmail or Outlook”. There are some ways to integrate with Gmail but they’re more hacks than true integration. I’ve tried a product called TrogBar from Priacta and while it does integrate with Outlook, I found it to be a bit combersome and dropped it after a few months.
3. Better intelligence. There is some basic intelligence in a lot of the GTD systems available but I don’t think the apps are smart enough yet. Toodledo has a very basic Scheduler that, given the priority of tasks, will tell you what you should be doing next. But this feature seems infantile at the moment. I hope the developers will expand it in the future. TrogBar actually has a more advanced “scheduler” feature but I often didn’t understand why it would suggest certain tasks. Perhaps this is because of the complexity of attributes that GTD allows for tasks (i.e. priority, due date, start date, status, etc.). Again, I think this will evolve as well with time.

What improvements would you like to see in your GTD system?