Hey blog reading paper nerds!

Today I want to touch on smart blog post consumption. I believe there’s a way to do it that won’t interfere too much with your daily doings and leave you overwhelmed. Even if you follow a billion blogs (like I do).

I also want to give an overview of two blog reader services from a casual user’s point of view.

First a little background story.

Back when Google Reader shut down it was much discussed in the crafting world (and everywhere else) what alternative blog reader services to use. I particularly remember Bloglovin‘ and Feedly being highlighted as the two main choices for crafters. I tried both.

My impression of them was and still is:

• Feedly is great for following a large number of blogs and still keep a good overview.
• Bloglovin’ is more like a feed of single blog posts, like scrolling through the Instagram feed, making it more suitable for fewer blog subscriptions.

Here’s a quick comparison:

Note: Both Feedly and Bloglovin’ have free iPhone apps that work similarly to their corresponding websites.

I’ve always followed a ton of blogs so for a while I just used Feedly and left my Bloglovin’ to collect dust.

But as I kept adding blogs to my Feedly I became overwhelmed. I started to avoid Feedly ’cause I always felt like there was a billion unread posts (sidenote: And seriously, even though I love A Beautiful Mess they just post SO much and so frequently and I’m only really interested in maybe a fourth of it). I felt like Feedly wasn’t presenting to me what I really wanted to read – even though they have a Must-Read filter… which I don’t think works as well as they intend because you’re still bombarded with stuff when you first open your Feedly. It’s just noisy.

How I consume blog posts

Because of my frustrations with the sensory overload that is Feedly, I decided that I needed to split my blog post consumption into two categories:

• Blogs I really want to read.
• Blogs I just want to read the headlines of.

I decided to start using Bloglovin’ again.

My blog consumption strategy is now this:

• I use Bloglovin’ for my must-read blogs.
• I use Feedly for my less important reads.

This works out great for me!

I follow 15 blogs on Bloglovin’ and I could pare it down even more to maybe just 10-12. And I’ll still mark some posts as read if I’m not drawn in by the title or am too scatter-brained to invest myself into reading it. I feel like I have a good sense of what my fave bloggers are up to but I don’t feel the pressure to read every single thing. And avoiding the noise from Feedly makes a quick browse less taxing on my already-crowded mind. I check Bloglovin’ once or twice a day.

I follow 26 blogs on Feedly but oddly enough I only really read one of them regularly (Seth Godin – brilliant entrepreneur who really belongs on my Bloglovin’). The rest I just scroll through and read if they sound super interesting or I’m looking for distraction. I don’t open Feedly every day – mainly those days where I’ve already broken my focus/work momentum and feel ready to take all the Feedly noise in. I don’t even bother marking stuff as read, I just skip it all together and let it pile up. My Feedly feed is not neat or particularly organized. That would just be way more work and effort than I’m willing to spend on those few golden nuggets I find there.

How do you read blogs?

Do you have any tips for smart blog post consumption? What are your frustrations when keeping up with your favorite blogs?

I’d love to hear your preferred method for reading blogs without the time suck.

Thanks so much for reading this particular blog post. ;) Have a wonderful day.

xo Nina

PS. Here’s where you can find me on Bloglovin’.