I’m way behind on the tasks at 31 Days to a Better Blog over on Blog Paws.
I started out balls to the wall and somewhere along the line I lost my steam. I suppose when you are doing a challenge such as that, you can’t be picking and choosing, you should be doing them all.
Truthfully I think the group in general slowed down some. I noticed in the beginning tasks many people were posting their response to the challenge and then slowly but surely over time the comments petered out.
The tasks started out at two per week, then every two-week schedule is much more appealing. But that still doesn’t mean I will rise to the occasion. 🙁
I think I will still manage to complete the 31 tasks, it just may take me long than normal. Similar to my performance in K-9 Kamp. Which by the way, I finally finished yesterday! 🙂 (Just kidding, I really didn’t finish it at all, I just like having the badge in my side bar.)
So the task I struggled with was “Solve a Reader Problem.” Since most of you don’t write into me with problems I didn’t really know what to solve.
I thought about it and decided to go with a problem that I as a blogging fan had. I follow so many awesome blogs, and I normally get an e-mail each time there is a new post. Sometimes I have hundreds of e-mails (and that’s not counting junk) in my inbox.
I thought I could share with you something that helped me manage the blogs I subscribe to.
This may not come a surprise to some of you because many of you are very savvy when it comes to the tools available to bloggers, but it was new to me and has really helped me.
It is google reader, www.google.com/reader it’s free and pretty easy to figure out, unlike stumbling which I still haven’t done.
It works like this, you sign up for an account, once you sign in you open another tab (for those of you who may not have the tabs option, you can just open another window.) Then you go to one of the blogs you read and copy the address. Tab over to the google reader page and on the left hand side near the top, you will see a button that says “Subscribe.” Click that button and paste the blog address in the box and click “Add.”
That’s it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. 🙂
You can add as many accounts as you want and they don’t have to be blogs! For instance say you love reading the NY Times, you can add that.
Then the next time you sign into Google Reader, it will have a list of your favorites on the left side bottom and it will tell you if there is a new post, or two new posts. Read all that you want, mark them as read or unread and viola, you’re done!
Then you can go to your trusty inbox and delete all those notices. 🙂
And by the way, feel free to tell me your problems, I’m a pretty good listener. 😉
I use google reader too. I really like it. Good suggestion! I was admiring your K-9 boot camp badge just yesterday. 🙂
It is a really great tool and if you follow a number of blogs it is very easy to keep track!
LOL do you think I should take that badge down?
Thanks for the tip!
You’re very welcome!
I follow a lot of blogs Jodi and spend one to two hours a day reading and commenting on posts. I enjoy it but prefer to do it all in one go. I just tap on the WordPress Read Blogs tab and work my way through the blogs I follow.
That works too. Does it work for non wordpress blogs?
I need to catch up on 31DBBB too… the holidays really slowed me down! I’m going to focus on that in the next week or so and I hope I can catch back up!
Great suggestion about Google Reader – I use it as well.
Just reading the words “google reader” makes me feel a bit nostalgic. I abandoned mine just over a year ago and I haven’t logged in once since. I got behind around January of 2011. There were just so many blogs I had yet to read and I became terrified of seeing all the highlighted links, reminding me of my shortcomings. So I quit, cold-turkey. I can’t imagine what my reader thinks of me now. I wonder just how many posts remain unread. Millions? Hundreds of millions? Maybe I’ll log-in, just to see.
And maybe not.
So I guess that’s my reader problem – how do you make the time to read all of the blogs you love?
That is a huge problem for me too Kristine. I myself so anxious, about getting the blog written and then reading everyone else’s blogs and making comments. So I decided to pick a couple that I MUST read. You know the one where you see they’ve made a post and you just HAVE to read it? I read those, then I take my time going thru the google reader.
I must say it is not easy and I’m sure your reader will forgive you. 🙂
I really like Google Reader. For me, it’s vastly superior to getting even one more email to stress on.
When I’m short on time, I will also emphasize certain must-read blogs. But I also try to stop by blogs without many comments. I remember how encouraging it was when I first started out to hear from others so I hope to pass a little of that feeling on.
We should all take a vow to eliminate guilt from our lives and vocabulary. After all, aren’t we doing this because it’s fun?
BTW, congratulations on ticking another duty off the 31 DBBB. 😉
Agreed Pamela. I still keep the subscriptions but when I sign in I simply delete them. I know for some people (me being one) having subscribers is important. In my instance I am trying to ‘sell’ myself so the more subscribers I have, the better it looks to potential agents or employers.
I try to leave comments too, I love the comments, they are almost better than writing the blog!
Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You haven’t finished the K9 Kamp tasks? I’m assigning you two extra long walks as punishment ;0) You *could* take it down, but if you procrastinate another few months we’ll start all over again!
I love Google Reader. It really helps make it easier to keep up and I like how I can group my favourite blogs into certain categories making it easier to catch up when I (frequently) fall behind.
Ha ha ha…..I think I may just leave the badge up there, I like the way it looks.
I do try and take extra long walks as often as I can. 🙂 The walking portion of Kamp is not where I had the issues….LOL