Reading RSS feeds

My good friend Zeth just posted on using RSS feeds to reduce distractions and I think that is super interesting! He is always running small experiments on himself to optimize or nudge his behaviour in some way. Here, here is trying out RSS feeds. Go read his post now.

Why RSS

Not being easily distracted seems like a core skill today. I'm using RSS readers to reduce the slot machine behaviour from clicking on a bookmark hoping for a new exciting post. Now there is just one place to go, and I can more easily control my cravings.

I'm also using RSS readers as a way of being less reliant on someone else's algorithm deciding what I get to see. Some RSS readers push AI filtering or "trending topics", as Zeth mentions. I don't like that! Avoiding the algorithm means that curation is only up to you.

I'm using FreshRSS self-hosted in a one-node Kubernetes cluster in my home lab. I like that it "gets out of the way" quickly. It is just a chronological list of posts, with some simple options to see e.g. all posts from a certain feed or category.

Full disclosure: I also still have a very bad habit of opening Hacker News whenever I'm stuck on something at work. Do as I say, not as I do-

Good RSS reading habits

Find good feeds to subscribe to! By far the most important thing, having high-quality stuff to read. I'm collecting my recommendations. Mostly people I actually know and then a few other sources I really like. It's easy to add a news feed that pushes 20 news stories every day. That defeats the whole purpose. You will be drowning in noise.

Prune your feed I have some sources that I have added due to a particularly high-quality post, and if I haven't been impressed with their writing over the next weeks or months, I will remove that feed again.

Don't try to read everything I think this one is important as well. You don't owe any of these writers your attention. When I ignore or forget my RSS reader for a week (or a month), and then get back to dozens or hundreds of unread stories, I will usually just mark everything older than some date "read". Maybe there was some gold hiding there, but there is no way I'm going to find it in the pile of random stuff. The internet is not lacking in content. Trying to read everything is a permanent backlog out of your control. Avoid that!

Don't feel obligated to read the post completely I practice this mostly for Zvi's notoriously long AI newsletters, but it is also true for anything else. They are very interesting, and I enjoy them a lot, but not enough to read a short novel several times a week. Skim, skip, consider asking your AI if there are sections you should focus on given your interests. Zvi also marks the most interesting sections with a bold heading in the Table of Contents. Thanks!