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Using Google Reader to Stop Information Overload and Improve Your Efficiency
By Miles Galliford (c) 2007

The Internet is the single greatest research resource that
has ever existed. However, whilst it has solved many of the
issues of getting access to information, it has created new
issues that have to be addressed. Probably the biggest of
these is information overload.

In order to keep up to date with my many areas of interest
so I can run my business efficiently, understand what is
happening in the online content sector and still have time
for leisure activities, I have to be extremely good at
filtering information.

Over the years I have tried many tools to help me aggregate
online information so that it is easy to scan, read, save
and filter.

The tool that I have finally settled on is the free 'Google
Reader'.

Google Reader enables me, on one page, to get updates from
all the sites that I regularly visit. I can scan each
headline and first paragraph very quickly. Any articles of
interest can be displayed in full and then saved or
discarded as required.

On an average morning I can get through 100-plus articles
in about an hour.

Who Should Use Google Reader?

Everyone who regularly visits multiple websites to keep up
to date with news, business and leisure, which I guess
means just about every Internet user!

If you are a blogger or run a specialist information
website, then Google Reader is an essential tool to help
you source material for your articles and enable you to
stay abreast of what is happening in your sector.

Setting Up a Google Reader Account

Setting up a Google Reader account so information is
automatically added from many of the sites you regularly
visit should take about 15 minutes if you follow these
instructions.

Step 1

Open your browser, go to www.google.com/reader and click on
the link on the right-hand side that says 'Open an Account
Now'.

Step 2

The screen should display the following simple fields to
fill in:

• Enter Your Current Email Address – Google will send the
verification email to this address, so make sure that you
provide a real and active address.

• Choose a Password.

• Confirm the Password.

• Location.

• Word Verification – This makes sure that you are a real
person and not a bit of Internet software!

The screen will then display the 'I accept. Create my
account' button.

Step 3

You will be sent an email to verify that your email address
is live and working, so go and find this in your inbox to
enable your account. It will have been sent from
accounts-noreply@google.com and will have the subject line
'Google Email Verification' .

You verify the email by clicking on the link in the email.
This will open your Google Reader page.

Step 4

When the Google Reader page opens for the first time, you
will have the opportunity to watch a 30-second video by
clicking on the 'Play' button at the bottom of the video
window. This is worth doing.

Once the video is finished, click the 'Get started by
adding subscription' button. This takes you to a screen
where you can start adding some websites chosen by Google.

Step 5

Google has bundled some sites into groups – News, Sports,
Fun and many more. I wouldn't bother choosing a bundle. I
prefer to choose individual feeds in which I'm really
interested.

To do this, click on the 'Add Subscription' link in the
left-hand column. This opens a search field with which you
can find feeds to add to your Reader page.

You can make the search either very specific to find the
feed on a particular website (for example, 'BBC UK sports
news') or much broader to find feeds about a particular
subject area (for example, 'gardening') .

Step 6

Once you have identified a feed you want to add, you simply
click the `Subscribe' button. The button immediately
changes to a yellow tick and the text 'Subscribed' .

At this point it is very useful to assign the feed to a
folder. As you add lots of feeds it is much easier to
manage your Reader site if they are bundled into folders.
To do this click on 'Add to a folder', which appears under
the feed once you have subscribed.

Click 'New folder...' and type in a relevant category name –
news, sports, small business, etc.

Repeat this process to add more feeds.

Congratulations! You have now taken a big step towards
making your information consumption much more effective.

Using Your Google Reader Page Day to Day

Once you have your Reader page set up with multiple feeds,
spend some time familiarising yourself with how you can
access the information you need.

Here is a quick overview.

Links in the Left-Hand Column

• Click 'Home' to get a view of the three latest articles
from each of your feeds.

• Click 'All items' to see all new articles as they come
in, in chronological order.

• 'Starred items' is the way to save articles in which you
are interested. When you read an individual item, a row of
options appears at the foot of the summary. If you click
'Add star', the article is then saved to the `Starred
items' folder.

• 'Shared items' allows you to set up your own feed so
that other people can read the articles you choose to
share. When you select an article, you get the option to
'Share' it by clicking the link at the foot of the article
summary.

• 'Trends' summarises your reading habits from the feeds
you have listed. I use this to remove feeds that I'm not
regularly reading.

• 'Add subscription' is covered above. It allows you to
search for new feeds so they can be added to your Reader
page.

• Under the 'Add subscription' link is a list of all your
feeds. You can select a certain folder to read all the
feeds in that category, or you can select an individual
feed to read the latest articles from that website.

Other Useful Functions

• 'Email' allows you to instantly send the article header
and summary to a friend. This is a very useful and
convenient option found at the foot of each article summary.

• 'Edit tags' enables you to add words that will help you
search and find a particular article. For example, if you
were researching for a book you could tag all relevant
articles 'book1' so that you could easily find them again.

• 'List view' is a useful feature that allows you to list
articles like email in an inbox, so you can very quickly
scan the headings to find items of interest. You'll find
the 'list view' tab in the top right corner of each page.

Enjoy using Google Reader. I hope that it not only makes
you much more efficient, but also revolutionises the way
that you consume information on the Web.
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