Google Organizing- Reader

Day 36- Google Organizing- Reader

This is the first post of what might be a multi-part series on how Google.com can help keep you organized.

If you are like me, you have a series of websites that you check often. For me, I always start my day off with Google News-that super awesome news aggregator. But there is also NPR and loads of blogs on: fitness, health, finances, organization, entertainment news, business news, crafting, and local events.

Some sites update once a month or once a week. Some sites update dozens of times a day. Figuring how to keep up with my news and blogs takes forever. And too much of my time is spent just catching up on posts.

Enter Google Reader!

Google Reader is an RSS aggregator that will collect, organize and syndicate all of my favorite websites into one handy site. So now, I can cruise my Reader for fifteen or twenty minutes in the morning and then save what I want to read later, on my breaks.

Google Reader is really easy to use. If you already have a Google account, you just click on "Reader", often found on the upper left hand corner.

Here, you can see my main reader page.


The blue Bar on the left hand side is the list of all my websites, organized by theme. The middle is where you will find all the articles in condensed form. And you can look at stories that have been saved for later and shared by you or your friends.

Here are some headlines from BBC News and NPR:

With Google Reader, you can share stories, save them for later or email to folks.

Now that you know how Google Reader works, how do you set it up? Whenever, you see a website with an RSS icon like these:
Or the word "Atom/RSS"- Click on it. It will ask you which reader you want it programed into. It is just that simple.

So, what once took my hours to organize, read and review, now takes my coffee break.

Competence Moment of the Day: I walked both to and from work for the first time in weeks, which felt fantastic!