It’s safe to say I read a lot. And by a lot I mean, too much most days. I also like to keep information, things of interest, or pages/entries I would hate to forget about. I look at this as life archiving of a sorts.
I currently have 137 RSS feeds heading in to Google Reader. I typically check my Reader multiple times in the day, depending on what has been updated and how interested I am at the time. Some days, I get to push the big-fat read-all button. I typically quick scan for interesting bits, then star particular entries for later review, in depth reading, archiving, and bookmarking. Time is precious, as is information!
Feeds are tagged (hint: folders) in to a bunch of names. Daily, Personal, Coding, Gadgets, Science, NSFW and some others. Generalized folders for generalized grouping. This makes it easy for me to focus on areas that I want to. As I mentioned, I quick scan. Either it is of interest or its not and that includes my grouped subscriptions. If I can’t read it immediately, I just star it for later. Stars are things I should check out in greater detail, and hopefully they won’t get lost in the daily onslaught of information.
I never let my starred queue get past 30 objects. By then I would possibly lose too much interest in wanting to look at it and leave it in there as I did once upon a time (that sucked immensely, it was too cluttered!). Every week I clean out the starred entries, or at least greatly reduce their number usually by offloading their URL and significance (tagged) to delicious.
I perm-bookmark using delicious (1367 bookmarks and growing). I don’t keep all my delicious bookmarks floating around. It makes syncing things troublesome, and I know delicious can be easily searched using the Firefox plugin they have. Most of the time I just hit the main site and search that way. I think of these bookmarks as perm-bookmarks. Things that I really enjoyed, tagged appropriately, for later projects or just common interest.
I rely heavily on Firefox’s Bookmarks Toolbar. These are common things I access with some regularity, or have for specific reference (LAN related admin interfaces to devices for instance). I sync these tool-related bookmarks across multiple Firefox installations using XMarks. XMarks is wonderful in that it also syncs passwords and contains profiles-per-web-browser. A good example of this function would be hiding OSX related bookmarks from my XP machine.
Within the Bookmarks Toolbar I have 12 folders (this can change, depending on what I need them for). I use naming like [YT] for YouTube videos, and [BBC] for BBC related urls. It makes finding them easier. Short names on folders means more folders at a glance. I also maintain short-formed urls for other things I visit quite often next to these folders.
I also maintain a folder named [Interesting Items]. Think of this as a scratchpad. This is where quick urls, side blurbs from IM messages, or links from page I’m reading, get click-dragged in to. It’s a bit like starring in Google Reader, but of random urls. These are other things I typically want to read or sort out. I do that once a month, and they usually end up deleted or archived to delicious. This is great because it gets synced via XMarks. When I go use the laptop, I can snuggle in to a chair upstairs and read things in greater detail (and comfort!).
My Firefox Bookmark Toolbar
The best part is, after years and years of crafting this, I finally have concluded I have a good working setup. Everything is within quick reach without too much fumbling, and in terms of work flow I don’t need to stop to think about where to save it. Bookmarks aren’t just added without reason too often. They maintain a certain level of significance for me, or any projects I have on the go. The effort for sorting bookmarks in to delicious takes about an hour each week.
And all of this results in a pleasant web environment. :)