Every morning when I first enter my office, I sit down at my desk and begin to carry out what seems to be my morning routine. First I'll review over my phone messages, than I'll check and respond to email, and once I am in the clear I'll pop open my Google Reader and begin to digest the mountains upon mountains of blog subscriptions I manage... mainly industry related reading that provides its fair share of news, updates, and happenings.

However, over the past few months now I've noticed that the time I've allowed for such reading has increased, and well, the level of quality reading had decreased. Maybe you've experienced this as well? What does this mean exactly? Well, I think it means that while I am beginning to spend more of my overall valuable time reading blogs and other resources, I don't believe that I'm getting much, in terms of value, in return for that time... or at least to the extent that I once was. This is an obvious problem for me as I am one that values the time I put into my work, as well as my efforts with staying up-to-date in an industry as fast-paced as search marketing is.

Like with any problem, the first step to finding an appropriate solution is to first analyze the situation right down to the very core. Lucky for me, I use Google reader which just so happens to provide a series of statistical trends of the very information that I'll need in order to analyze my problem. Let's have a look, shall we:

The first screen-shot highlights the number of items (blogs and newsletters) read day by day over the past 30 days. According to this graph, of the 104 feeds that I am currently subscribed to, I was able to read just over 5,300 items. Amazing, isn't it! To think that I read through 5,300 different blog posts in 30 days is incredible. However, for the record, I must admit that I didn't completely read each of these 5,300 items as much of this "reading" is in fact title surfing - a process where I'll skim the titles of each item and determine whether or not to read. In any event, 5,300 is still a lot.

The second screen-shot highlights the number of items read by time of day. According to this graph, of the 5,300 items read over the past 30 days, 3,000 of them were read between the hours 8 - 9am... which is to be expected seeing how I purposely try and make reading my feeds apart of my everyday morning routine.

The third screen-shot highlights the number of items read by day of the week. According to this graph, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays are my heavy reading days... which again, is something to be expected. Mondays and Tuesdays are heavy due to the weekend, and Fridays are as well because bloggers tend to publish on Thursdays in order to get their information out before the weekend... much like my thought was with this post. :).

However, what does catch my eye is that this graph shows very little reading having taken place on Saturday and Sunday for the past 30 days. This is a tad misleading as I happen to do quite a bit of my reading on the weekends. Why the discrepancy? Well, it is most likely due to a completely separate web project that I have been spending my weekend hours working on... thus explaining the odd occurrence.

The forth screen-shot highlights the top 20 feeds (of my 104 subscriptions) according to the number of items I've been able to read from each source in the past 30 days. Personally, I find this to be key information which will help me to better understand how effectively my time is being spent. Using this list, as well as my understanding of the quality of information I am getting from my feeds, I will be able to determine how exactly to trim the fat, sort of speak, from my Google reader.

The firth screen-shot highlights the top 20 feeds (of my 104 subscriptions) according to the average number of items each feed produces daily. While this information alone doesn't provide me with much, it, combined with my understanding of the quality of information I am getting from my feeds, will also help to determine which of my subscriptions are a bust.

The last screen-shot highlights the top 20 feeds (of my 104 subscriptions) that have been inactive the longest. If nothing else, this list will serve as a starting point for where I can make my cuts... let's face it, 104 feeds is way too many for me to be managing.

And that's, that. After further analyzing the statistics and trends associated with my Google Reader account, I've concluded that I do have somewhat of a time / quality problem on my hands. It is very clear to me that I am spending too much of my valuable time reading industry stories, and getting very little in return for it - this is of course referring to the quality of new information I'm getting out of what I read - which brings me to my next step.

To solve my time / quality problem, I will spend the next week or so evaluating my subscriptions as well as determining which feeds still provide me with value, and which can be cut. I am hoping that with my next post, I will be able show you exactly how I was able to "trim the fat" from my 104 subscriptions and at the same time provide great value to future industry reading.

Until next time, peace.