In an information highway-like world, one has no choice but to keep oneself updated with the latest news, trends, and perspectives in the current arena to remain productive; but constant alerts, emails, and browsing usually subject the person to information glut, killing valuable hours.
The following blog post will guide you on How to Use RSS Feeds to Boost Productivity. It will cover setting up feeds, organizing content, and finding the right tools for the right needs.
This is where RSS feeds come into the picture. You would certainly be in a position to manage the information that you want to consume and avoid wasting valuable time scrolling through endless articles by the RSS feeds. The following blog post will guide you in the use of RSS feeds to boost your productivity. It will cover setting up feeds, organizing content, and tools for the right needs.
1. What Are RSS Feeds, and How Do They Work?
RSS allows all the content from several websites to be put together into one stream. If the websites of your interest allow that kind of capability, you can subscribe to feeds from them with a feed reader and the feed reader collects updates, blog posts, and news articles from all your subscribed sites into a single format that is easy to read.
So, the main advantage of RSS feeds is that it makes all such relevant content available in one place and saves time when a person does not have to find himself around different sites.
How to get started with RSS Feeds?
Find out relevant websites, blogs, and news sources related to your industry or interests
Look for an icon called RSS (usually an orange icon with white lines).
Copy the link and then paste it into your chosen feed reader.
Once you have set it up, you can continue monitoring new entries and fresh info continually coming in from all your favourite sources through the feed reader itself.
2. The Best RSS Feed Reader for Productivity
The type of RSS feed reader you will ultimately use will dictate how effectively you can utilize and organize your content. Some feature everything from tagging and folder organization to integration with other tools. A few of the most popular ones are:
Feedly: Another highly popular feed reader with an attractive new interface. Organizes feeds into topics using tags as well as supports integration with productivity tools like Trello and Slack.
Inoreader: The most customizable feed reader, Inoreader lets anyone organize feeds by topics, filter by keyword and does comprehensive searches through articles.
Flipboard: Flipboard is quite a pleasing, magazine layout setting: its reading experience is fantastic and pleasing to the eyes.
The Old Reader: fall in love with a simple feed reader that doesn’t take much of you; The Old Reader will help you simply remain in focus while you consume your stuff.
Using the right RSS feed reader will place you in a perfect position to categorize, prioritize the essentials, and cut out noise.
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3. Organizing Your Feeds for Maximum Productivity
But there is a lot more to a well-configured RSS setup than what has been mentioned so far. The whole RSS organization is very crucial to this effect. Here’s how to organize your RSS feeds to make you more productive:
1. Categorize by Topic or Project
Organize feeds into categories that suit your work or projects and personal interests. For example, if you work in marketing, you’ll have “SEO News,” “Social Media Trends,” and “Content Marketing” as different categorizations, and you can just track relevance and won’t be distracted by something irrelevant.
2. Create reading goals and time blocks
To avoid information overload, you can pre-set different times of the day to check through your RSS feeds. For example, you might dedicate 15 minutes each morning to review the key updates and another 10 minutes after lunch. In this way, you won’t be constantly checking things out, but you will be spending precious time exploring information.
3. Use tags and folders to easily find it.
Many RSS feed readers also use tags and folders you can use to mark articles that you want to go back and read or organize content by the action needed, like “To Read,” “Reference Material,” or “For Sharing.” This will make retrieving content related to a topic or interest easier when needed.
4. Additional Tips for Using RSS Feeds in Your Favor
There is much to RSS feeds than just subscribing to a few sites. Here are some more tricks to get the most out of your feeds:
Filter out unnecessary content: Normally, feed readers allow filtering by keywords or even blocking certain types of content. Use these features for finding high-value updates and eliminating spam or irrelevant posts.
Connect with Other Tools: There are many readers who, like Feedly, also allow connecting other productivity tools. For example, if a user connects his or her RSS feeds with apps like Evernote or Trello, this means he or she will be tracking all-important insights on projects.
Enable Alerts on Important Feeds: If there are things that need to be acted upon, enable alert mechanisms. You are then constantly kept abreast of what really matters in the news without having to check a feed reader nonstop.
Simplify Your Information Intake through RSS Feeds
RSS feeds can help you live more practically as they offer you a well-organized and structured method of ingesting your information. The right feed reader comes with well-organized categories and time-saving filters, keeping all the essentials above all, industry news, trends, and updates in one place without forcing you to read everything. Whether it’s marketing, tech, or some other field that requires you to be up to date in all of these areas, an RSS feed is surely going to help you get a clutter-free, customized source of information adjusted to your productivity needs.