Honey, I’m on Food Overload!

By on January 16, 2007 in RSS Feeds with 11 Comments

The other day, I went grocery shopping with my wife. When we go together, we usually split up with an In-and-Out strategy.

Foodchoice We’re trying to eat healthier, so this time we shopped together, starting in the produce section. So many choices, where does one begin? Some sprouts? They’re healthy. Spinach? I love it, but Cindy can’t stand it. Peppers? Cook ‘em for me. Slice ‘em and chew ‘em for Cindy. A little bit of everything? Sure, let’s get the new year started right.

We had a half-full basket — and hadn’t even made it out of the produce section. Yikes!  Too many choices. I’m on Food Overload already. What to do, what to do…

Delete some items from the food basket. After all, we know where to get each item when we’re hungry for it, right?  It’s not like we can eat it all at once – and if we did, we’d get sick.

What’s the difference between Food Overload and Feed Overload? Well, the items in your feed aggregator don’t have an expiration date. You can sense what each post is like by its headline (hopefully). If you’ve bitten off more feed than you can chew:

  • Delete some items from the feed aggregator: If I haven’t read something a feed in over a week, I usually delete it.
  • Don’t read all your feeds at one sitting: This will surely cause indigestion of the brain. Save room for tomorrow.
  • Combine your feeds into one big feed stew: This is what Kate did with her feeds, using FeedBlendr, which I’ve also used with success.
  • Order Out from Megite: Let Megite take your reading list and turn it into ‘river of news’ for you. Here’s one they put together for me, using one of my OPML reading lists.

If you reach information overload, step away from the table and survey what’s on your plate.  We don’t buy one of everything in the store. Nor should we read every item that gets published.

Do you have a well-balanced diet of feed intake? Share your secret to staying trim.

Photo on Flickr by dmmaus

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  • http://www.blogopreneur.com Kian Ann

    Heh. Thanks Mike, for the timely reminder. I just realised I am attempting to read over a thousand unread posts in Newsgator :P
    Crazy me.

  • http://www.brainbasedbusiness.com Ellen Weber

    A real keeper – thanks Mike! I like the habit of not eating for a few hours before I sleep – as that allows food to consume and digest well before it turns into fat. Great stuff here … Off to lunch now, where I’ll choose carefully cause I stopped in…:-)

  • http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com Anna Farmery

    Hey Mike
    For someone who is an avid reader of your blog – superb content day in day out – I need to object (she says smiling!) to this post. I am dieting publicly as you know (www.middleageshed.co.uk) and all the references to food are driving me mad :) I am hungry now…what I wouldn’t give for a little choccy bar.
    In the meantime fantastic “food for thought” and thought it was time I showed my great appreciation for all the ideas you give us…keep up the great work.

  • http://www.conversationagent.com Valeria Maltoni

    Read the items that are connected with your conversation and what you’re thinking about already first. They will help you focus your thoughts and will not feel overwhelming because they’re already on your radar. We do think connectively and that’s why blogs are such popular and useful tool.
    Have a visual aggregator that shows you what’s being published. I use Google homepage and organize my feeds by related people — how I found each blogger. This ties in to the point above. It makes it easier to follow a topic as sometimes you can see the news making a nice wave through your feeds.
    Take little bites throughout the day and you won’t feel hungry, nor will you feel full.

  • http://www.allbusiness.com/blog/CustomerServiceExperience/10783 Glenn (Customer Service Experience) Ross

    Well, my “vanilla” approach is to use bloglines to organize my feeds by topic. I have recently added a “potpourri” folder to hold those that are not readily categorized.
    Regards,
    Glenn

  • http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/ C. B. Whittemore

    Mike, what an appropriate and fascinating post! And I sure appreciate your mentioning Flooring The Consumer’s “Too Many Choices”!

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    >Kian – My wife does a lot of crafty stuff, I call it collecting fabric. The other day, she told someone I collect blog posts:-)
    > Ellen – Here’s to a healthy, balanced diet for our brain – and your blog should always be on the plate.
    > Hi Anna – Thanks for the kudos. Fortunately, we kept the topic on veggies:-) Stay contagious!
    > Ah, Valeria – a great suggestion on how to organize your intake. Great thought on how to watch the tale travel.
    > Another great suggestion, Glenn. I’ve also taken some feeds and move them into a “daily” folder. These feeds are ones I’ve become addicted to – must reads.
    > C.B., Your back-to-back gems on choices are must reads. Thanks for igniting this thought.

  • http://www.salondemaria.blogspot.com Maria Palma

    Mike,
    I just went through most of my Bloglines folders last night and skimmed the blogs that I haven’t visited in awhile. Then I went through and unsubscribed from the ones I haven’t read in months. I like Bloglines because I can organize them by topic, but there have been some glitches in the system lately, so I may switch to another reader…

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    Hi Maria, have you tried Google Reader? I’ve only used it sparingly so far, but I hear great things – including a share feature. Sorting by topic or importance is key to maintaining a well-balanced feed intake.

  • http://profile.typekey.com/ktrgovac/ Kate

    Hi, Mike ..
    Thanks for the link! I’m having some update challenges with Feedblendr. The aggregate feed doesn’t update as often as I’d like. I need to see if its something in the OPML. Your advice about trimming down the feeds is excellent. So difficult when you know you’re on info overload, but don’t *want* to change :-) And thanks for the megite pointer; will check it out!

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    Hi Kate. The one thing I don’t like about the FeedBlendr is it’s not easy adding a feed to the group. But my understanding is that Megite can set things up so when you make changes, your OPML (and megite page) changes automatically with the tweaks you make. I’ll be using Megite more next week and we’ll see what happens. Would love to hear how it works for you if you try it.

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