Chris Blackwell’s Domain

I’m finally back from vacation today. Well actually I got back yesterday but I needed a day just to unwind. I also needed a day to read over all the news and articles that got built up in my Google Reader over the week, or so I thought. I had flagged over 30 articles to read later during the week. When Sunday came, I deleted all but a few of them, and you know what, I didn’t miss a thing. Sure, I may not have read the latest technique to market your blog and focus on your niche more, but how many different ways do I need to read about that?

I thought that every day I had to read every article posted on Problogger, Zen Habbits, Daily Blog Tips, or Dosh Dosh. I ended up deleting all of the articles from them that had built-up over my week away. By seeing how many articles I normally read in a week, I got a pretty good idea of how many I read in a day. I must read about 10 - 15 articles a day during the weekdays. How much productivity is lost in reading all those articles? Sure, they all might have a great tip here, or an idea there, but taking away all that extra time will cost me money in the end. Where was that tip?

While I do think it can be good to read other blogs, and learn about new marketing techniques or strategies, I also think that you should keep in perspective how much time you are spending and how many articles of the same content rewritten in a different way. My week off was just that, a week off. No Twitter, no Blog Catalog, no email, no instant messaging, and a significant reduction in the amount I read via RSS. Give yourself a break and try it out. You’ll be surprised at what your NOT missing.