Haha, your RSS feeds=my socnet notifications :) I'm just getting to this now! :) But if my notification pile got much higher than it is now, I'd start deleting. Once I see it hit twenty, I make the time to hack it back down. If it reaches 40, I just delete 'em. It sucks, but you can't possibly see every movie, read every book, watch every show, read every blog, listen to every podcast that you want--as sucky as that is. I have three friends who do weekly podcasts and I usually only listen to one of them. In the entertainment business, there's a saying "sometimes you have to kill your babies." This means that sometimes you have to cut the scene from the script, kill off a character or lose that character motivation--basically, it means, for the sake of time, or content, you have to ditch something you love. Since these aren't your babies, I guess the saying becomes "sometimes, you've got to kill your friends' babies or strangers' babies."
Wow, that's sounds much more disturbing than I meant it to sound :)
But it looks like everyone else has already said something similar. Ah well. I tried!!
Gdub
· 9 months ago
I almost replied with, "better late than never," but realized that it's totally contradictory to the purpose of this post.
Anyhow, thanks for the response. It's a good comparison. We get bogged down in the minutia so often that we often miss the big picture, and thus miss out on what we started on. Good point.
thepete
· 9 months ago
Haha, well, you're right--but there's a balance. That's what looking at the big-picture does for us, I think. It lets us see where things are out of balance.
Oh and one thing I forgot to mention was that my google reader account got so packed with feeds I finally gave up on it entirely--didn't even delete stuff. Just walked away. :(
Kat
· 10 months ago
It seems to me (the life thing,) is all about the harvest and we're all in a constant state of planting, nurturing, picking, digesting, and expelling. You are simply doing your part by deleting said RSS feeds. The creative genius of your friends and colleagues will await you when you are ready to consume again. In the meantime, enjoy the freedom. I love to take out the trash myself!
Gdub
· 10 months ago
Good analogy. I think our modern disposition to be pack rats bleeds over into seemingly unrelated facets of our lives. Look at the boom in storage rental. People can't even keep everything in their house! Something about our culture seems to promote this hording instinct.
robin
· 10 months ago
I am not afraid to delete. Whenever I notice that a feed does not interest me anymore: DEL. No worries at all.
Gdub
· 10 months ago
I'm glad to hear that. You win the effective dude award of the day.
Oliver (lockerhaxor)
· 10 months ago
I do exactly the same thing with my RSS feeds. Just thought I'd point that out.
As far as your life example: I do. When ever I get so back logged in something (for instance say a few video projects) and I couldn't possibly finish it all, I just forget about some of them. I've had videos, blog posts, and sadly even school work all fall to that principle. I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do exactly, but It's certainly an easier thing to do. Generally it makes you feel as though you have a clean start.
Good post :).
Gdub
· 10 months ago
That is a very good point Oliver.
It certainly only goes so far (as in school work). However, the basic idea of prioritizing still holds. Sometimes a small assignment will hold us back from accomplishing a large on. At this point it would be a good idea to ditch the small one and go for the large.
Perhaps the problem lies in putting something like homework and surfing the net in different categories. If you lump them together it would be easier to asses which needs to be deleted.
What do you think?
Oliver (lockerhaxor)
· 9 months ago
Oh I agree entirely there. I try to actually put the two together to ease work. For instance if I need to write up a project I'll do it all in Google Docs and whenever I want to take a quick break I'll already have the web browser open.
Then again that becomes a distraction sometimes and becomes more of a distraction then anything else.
I'm trying to find that balance. Hopefully I will someday. :D
Andrew
· 10 months ago
Very nice, to free yourself you need to know when to let go and when to hold on. Sometime we just hold on in the hope that everything doesn't run away. Information can be the same way. Too much and you run the risk of that learning any new information.
ninerfan4986
· 10 months ago
I talked to you about it on IM before.
OptikDoom
· 10 months ago
"So where is the backed up stockpile in your life?" : My Room "Are you going to delete it?" Kinda Hard. Maybe I could burn it down... then again I have family living here too, and I gots valuables. So let's put that into perspective. Maybe there are valuable things you'd like to look over and keep instead of delete without notice. My opinion. If it causes you so much stress that you start throwing up then delete your heart out.
Gdub
· 10 months ago
I wouldn't suggest burning your room, but you should probably delete all the junk in your room that you don't need. Just like deleting your Email account or your RSS Reader isn't the same as getting rid of the junk clogging it up.
So is there excess crap in your room?
Andy
· 10 months ago
The interesting thing is how I looked at the topic for this post and decided it wasn't one that was very crucial to my life. I figured I never get more than 2 emails a day and only subscribe to a handful of blogs so it most likely wouldn't apply to me. I later found some free time and decided to read it anyway and actually did find ways that it could apply to me.
I think the thing to do is not stress over not getting to something but it's perfectly fine to keep it around until you want to get to it. I liked OptikDoom's idea of how there are things which are valuable and shouldn't be thrown out just because I can't get to it today. One of the backed up stockpiles in my life is the fact that when I buy a book from the bookstore it is rarely just A book, it's usually 4-6 at a time. So I have a lot of books on my shelf that I intend to read but haven't yet. I'm not going to throw out 30 books just because after several months of sitting on my shelf I haven't gotten to them yet.
What is good though is to go through my shelves and find the books that found their way on there and will never get used, not even as reference.
So if the goal is to simplify your life and having so much available to you causes an anxiety attack then delete away. But if the object is to just hack away so you can have less just for the sake of having less it seems like you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of deleting aimlessly I think my personal goal would be to dejunk instead.
Gdub
· 9 months ago
I recall a friend of mine who was an obsessive bibliophile. He got to the point where he needed to use his books in lieu of furniture. Then, he decided on a new rule for himself: only buy a new book after finishing a book. This rule helped him out tremendously, and consequently his obsession with HAVING books finally fueled a more intense reading of books.
Just a thought.
Victor
· 9 months ago
Not that hard was it? Sometimes you can over commit your time. I tell people all the time...Don't say yes! Say NO!
If you feel the need to read and answer for "THEM", you better make sure it is something you can handle.
Gdub
· 9 months ago
True words.
Ginger
· 9 months ago
I haven't started using RSS because of the same reason. I choose carefully all the things that I really need to read and intake into my ever expanding mind. If I don't have time to go to the website, then I probably don't really have (or want to make) time to read it. There is so much information out there... you can't absorb it all and still get the necessary things done. Speaking of deleting, my team is putting together a stress release program, to be launched hopefully within the next month, that can help your brain to do the same thing... delete emotions and beliefs and anything that can interfere with the way your computer (brain) processes and handles information. It's a totally unique way to "clean out your inbox" of your mind, body, and spirit..... Get in touch with our team right now if you'd like, and be one of the first people to benefit from the technique and program! I don't normally do this when I comment, but since it really seems you enjoyed deleting your RSS feeds, I just had to share with you!
All Comments
Wow, that's sounds much more disturbing than I meant it to sound :)
But it looks like everyone else has already said something similar. Ah well. I tried!!
Anyhow, thanks for the response. It's a good comparison. We get bogged down in the minutia so often that we often miss the big picture, and thus miss out on what we started on. Good point.
Oh and one thing I forgot to mention was that my google reader account got so packed with feeds I finally gave up on it entirely--didn't even delete stuff. Just walked away. :(
As far as your life example: I do. When ever I get so back logged in something (for instance say a few video projects) and I couldn't possibly finish it all, I just forget about some of them. I've had videos, blog posts, and sadly even school work all fall to that principle. I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do exactly, but It's certainly an easier thing to do. Generally it makes you feel as though you have a clean start.
Good post :).
It certainly only goes so far (as in school work). However, the basic idea of prioritizing still holds. Sometimes a small assignment will hold us back from accomplishing a large on. At this point it would be a good idea to ditch the small one and go for the large.
Perhaps the problem lies in putting something like homework and surfing the net in different categories. If you lump them together it would be easier to asses which needs to be deleted.
What do you think?
Then again that becomes a distraction sometimes and becomes more of a distraction then anything else.
I'm trying to find that balance. Hopefully I will someday. :D
"Are you going to delete it?" Kinda Hard. Maybe I could burn it down... then again I have family living here too, and I gots valuables.
So let's put that into perspective. Maybe there are valuable things you'd like to look over and keep instead of delete without notice. My opinion.
If it causes you so much stress that you start throwing up then delete your heart out.
So is there excess crap in your room?
I think the thing to do is not stress over not getting to something but it's perfectly fine to keep it around until you want to get to it. I liked OptikDoom's idea of how there are things which are valuable and shouldn't be thrown out just because I can't get to it today. One of the backed up stockpiles in my life is the fact that when I buy a book from the bookstore it is rarely just A book, it's usually 4-6 at a time. So I have a lot of books on my shelf that I intend to read but haven't yet. I'm not going to throw out 30 books just because after several months of sitting on my shelf I haven't gotten to them yet.
What is good though is to go through my shelves and find the books that found their way on there and will never get used, not even as reference.
So if the goal is to simplify your life and having so much available to you causes an anxiety attack then delete away. But if the object is to just hack away so you can have less just for the sake of having less it seems like you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of deleting aimlessly I think my personal goal would be to dejunk instead.
Just a thought.
If you feel the need to read and answer for "THEM", you better make sure it is something you can handle.
It's important to start out conscientiously.