Magazines, blogs, print books, e-books ~ I read’em all 🙂 . Enjoying a Saturday at home today is a great time to catch up on what I’ve missed, while catching my team’s game on TV. After all, it is college football season!
my fall print mag fix ~ this will hold me a while!
I use a blog reader to easily keep up with my favorite online content ~ it’s like creating my own magazine, that’s available whenever I want to catch up ~ and it’s FREE!! I get my fix of print mags in bulk about 3 times a year now ~ spring, fall, holiday ~ and then buy 1 or 2 favorites in between times, and it gets expensive.
I browse my blog reader several times a week for FREE! A friend recently asked me about using a blog reader ~ it’s time-consuming to check out lots of individual websites and bloggers ~ so I thought it could be good to share my tips here with y’all too! Grab your fave cup o’somethin’ and check this out ~~~
A blog reader (or RSS service) lets you choose what you want to read, and then collects it for you until you read it or toss it. There are several free services available, but I like Feedly.com and that’s what I have used as examples below. These examples will get you started, and if you are interested in a more detailed set up, there are tons of articles on the web 🙂 . Also, there is a feature to keep my feed sync’d on all my devices ~ phone, tablet, PC ~ so I always have the latest content. Love that feature!
This is a page from my Feedly reader. Once you create an account, you can choose your layout style, font style and size, organize your content into easy reading, and set other preferences. Yes, it’s like your own magazine!
It’s easy to add your own content ~ there are several different ways. You can search categories and Feedly will suggest content, sort of like an Apple genius list. You can also type a website or blog name directly into the search bar if there is a specific one you want to add ~ maybe bluwaterlife.com 🙂 .
Once you have a blog reader account with a service like Feedly, you can also add content directly from websites you like, if they have a RSS icon or feed link. Most website icons look like the one I use on my site ~ sort of a tilted fan. Click the RSS icon to add to your feed on your reader account.
Once you add some feeds to your reader, you can organize them {and reorganize them!} lots of ways ~ by category, must reads, saved reads, etc. Hey, they’re your categories, in your reader mag, so call them whatever you like!
I can flip through a hundred or so blog or pub posts in about 30 minutes ~ of course I am just scanning most and reading a select few in detail. I also bookmark or “save for later” things I want to revisit or share on social media. I could never visit that many individual websites and blogs!
If this sounds like something you might like, there is no time like the present, so here’s the Feedly link to get you started! And as it’s your magazine, you can add whatever floats your boat. Hey, I do hope you’ll add my blog so we can keep up regularly ~ and it’ll almost be like having coffee together every week but without having to go to Starbucks to meet up! Happy reading y’all ~~~
coco says
I didn’t even know this kind of thing existed! Thanks for sharing. If you saw my stack of old magazines hanging around right now you’d say Get a grip CoCo! This is awesome
bluwatergal says
Get your blog reader going Coco! You’ll triple your reading productivity. Hmmm, that may or may not be a good thing 🙂 Bwg ~~~