(playing in the background- Mud on the Tires- Brad Paisley)
There is no right or wrong answer to this question. It is just my own curiosity. Time is a cruel master and I know that my own time constraints prevent me from reading as much as I want to. Prior to marriage and children I routinely read three or four books at a time and I could usually finish all of them within a couple of weeks. Of course I only needed about fours of sleep each night and I was good to go.
Now it is a different story. I average about 5 to 5.5 but would do better with 6 to 6.5 a night.
Anyway I have tried to limit my blogroll to blogs/sites that I read consistently but maintaining that schedule is rather tough because even though I read quickly there is often a ton of material to review and some of those posts require/demand more time. You know the ones that I am speaking of, they fall into two categories.
The first are those posts that tug on my emotions and touch something inside me. I like to stop and read them slowly to make sure that I really am understanding what I am reading and sometimes I am just blown away by it all, so much that I have to stop and catch my breath.
Some of the posts written by parents who have lost children have rocked my world. I often finish them and head straight to hug and kiss my children, wherever they may be.
The second category are those posts that are chock full of information and require that I read, review and read again. Sometimes that is because the topic is something that I am not as familiar with and I need to proceed carefully so that I can be certain that I understand it all. Sometimes I am well versed in the topic but there is so much information there I get sidetracked.
(playing in the background- Minnie The Moocher- Cab Calloway)
The web lends itself to that, sidetracking. In this particular case what I am referring to are the posts where the author refers to other posts written by themselves or others that lend support to their assertions. Sometimes I have to stop reading the original post so that I can go check out the links and then return to the post which started it all.
All told it comes back to the same place, how much time do I really have and where do I want to focus that time.
So I look at the blogroll and I ask myself which blogs are getting the most attention and which are getting none. Do they deserve those rankings or should I make an adjustment. When I consider making an adjustment I always ask myself what happened and why am I spending less time there.
Has the blog jumped the shark or am I just bored with it. I am sure that people do the same with this one too, but that is a different story.
Sometimes I find that I am really focused on a couple of blogs and their blogrolls. A blogroll is interesting to me in the same way that looking a person's books and music is. What do they like to read? Are there blogs there that I am unfamiliar with and if so, should I be reading them.
(playing in the background- Danny Boy- The Celtic Tenors)
This much I know is true. I haven't reached a place/moment in time in which I am content with my education and I haven't found a place where I am sick of the blogosphere. One way or another I need to find more time or to further streamline my blogroll.
The blogroll is always going to be a work in progress.
What do you think?
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20 comments:
I am new to blogging, but have found it a great way to expand my brain in some very necessary ways. Most of my time right now is mired in little-kid land, and all of the lego-and-Laurie Berkner-and-Grover inspired conversation that goes with that. I am happy with my life right now - a blessing for sure.
But I miss the adult intellectual yes-my-brain-functions-on-a-master'sdegree-level interactions. I really love the give-and-take of many of the blogs I visit. Some really interesting people out there.
I spent some time today organizing the blogs I read, because I don't have time to read, or write, nearly as much as I'd like to. I currently have 37 blogs that I'm following, but I am a couple weeks behind on 5 or 6 of them. There are probably only 3 or 4 that I check faithfully every day and the others all fall in the middle somewhere.
My system is pretty simple. I added the feature that tells me when a new post is up on the blogs in my blogroll. This way, I only look at new ones, and don't waste time opening them all to find out someone hasn't blogged for 3 weeks. :)
Good luck!
Interestingly enough, just earlier today I looked at my blogroll and wondered if whether, instead of updating it, I should just dump the whole thing. I read who I want to read; I correspond with whom I want to correspond. If anyone is interested enough to know who those people/bloggers might be, they can ask me. (I'm still contemplating dumping the links...)
As for "How many blogs do you read?" My answer? TOO MANY!!!
Gotta go with "too many"... but it's about 50 or so now, with a lot of others that I check once in a great while. Would love to streamline the blogroll a bit more...!
So many blogs, so little time. It's a struggle to try to keep up with everyone, that's for sure. Not to mention that I now have no time for reading anything else--like books or mags.
However, links are a mitzvah for many reasons, so I wouldn't delete my blogroll.
Ezzie, I dont know how guys like you do it. (by guys like you I mean guys who always know whats going on with all the blogs on any given day) I can't really read more than 10 a day I thnk. It just depends on who's been updated, and of course if your a frequent daily updater I also probably read you.
As for my blogroll, I sometimes take off blogs I really havent read in ages. I try to keep it short. I don't think of it as "these are my daily reads" so much as if I could these are all the blogs I'd read everyday, if they updated and I had the time.
The Toner Mishap blogroll is going to be updated here very shortly. I suggested a few changes to B2 on Friday, because I still don't how to do all the technical stuff, but I'm catching on.
Writing and reading blogs is very time consuming, but I find it rewarding too.
I only wish I had more time for all the blogs in my life.....(sigh)
I used to read more before I started trying to write my own blog. I try to visit all of my blogroll blogs every couple days, still keep on eye on JRants, and occasionally even troll for the obscure or up and coming diamonds in the rough. And like you, I don't sleep nearly enough. My brain seems to prefer information, perspective and involvement instead of sleep.
How many? Too many. And there are even more of them that I don't read as often as I want to.
BTW, I think that first comment is comment spam. I definitely saw the exact same comment somewhere else. And if I can find it, I'll let you know...
It is spam. I had it on mine as well.
I'm up to about fifteen bloggers who comment at least occasionally on my blog, so I read their blogs daily. Then there are another 10 that I read just for interest and inspiration.
I don't put the latter group on my blogroll. I just have them bookmarked.
Q
Lately my time to blog has been severely restricted so I am going to take the easy way out and thank you all for your comments as opposed to commenting individually.
I do read each one.
I'm somewhere around 10 or so, regularly. I usually check who's on the blogroll first, and then I go for JRants and see what the titles have in store.
(I admit, I judge a book by its cover. But then again, I'll all for juding anything/anyone before you get to know it/him/her.)
Great post.
It all depends n what you mean by "read".
I follow about 70+ blogs on bloglines, but, I religiously follow only a handfull, but I skim the others to see if there is anything interesting going on...
70 blogs- whoa.
I have pondered over many a Blogroll, including mine. In the end, i think it's a combination of blogrolls and bookmarks, and blogs I like to lurk at. All in all, probably too many to count!
I read the usual suspects.
i would like to know why blogger comments dont support RSS so i cant see when new comments are posted.
What tools do you guys use to find out when new comments are in?
What tools do you guys use to find out when new comments are in?
I usually rely upon the email notification I get from blogger.
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