Designing in the open arena for a yet-unreleased product could be considered crazy. Or genius. I like the latter in this case.

One of our team’s managers has said of me, “Jason knows how to find inefficiencies… and he likes to root them out.”

People who know me pretty well seem to agree, and I often get asked what my workflow is for specific tasks.  Sometimes I’m asked about video editing, other times it’s photo management.

Today, I’ll throw up a quick synopsis on managing sharing/reading/archiving of news (which for me, really also means use of social media tools).  True to my teammate’s saying, I often change this to get it better.  But this works for now.

First, the Core Tools

To start, I use Google Reader for RSS feeds.  If you don’t know what RSS is, the simple answer is it’s technology that allows you to find out when your favorite sites update without having to go to the site to check in.  Not all sites offer it, but those that do get more traffic (even if it’s both a niche product and considered declining by some due to social networks).

I also use Twitter in a way many others probably don’t (more on this in a bit).  The other tools I use in more common ways are Facebook, Instapaper, Delicious, Evernote, and StumbleUpon.

Keeping all these sources together is where the volume works for me.

Organizing The Reading Flow

Google Reader

For RSS, I keep three folders literally numbered and named as: 1) Must Read; 2) Read in Time, and; 3) Purge if Necessary. All RSS feeds I subscribe to go into one of these buckets.

For me, it’s important to rank reading by importance, not “tech” vs. “product” vs. “status updates.” That way, if overload comes, there’s no guilt in marking all no. 3 as read and moving on.

Twitter

I follow directly many people that I know, but I also keep Twitter’s new-ish “lists” of news/info sources.  Those include brands, media, and other sources I don’t check on that often but are beneficial in bulk.  And there are three lists, just like the above folders in Google Reader.

Others

No special sauces on the others listed above, just using their sites and tools as needed.

Using the Tools & Organization to Read More, Faster

General Reading

I scan my RSS and/or Twitter very quickly in moments between meetings or at my desk, using Google Reader’s “Star” ability to save some of the headlines in a new queue.  For Twitter, I use “favorite” then use the RSS feed for my favorites to feed back into Google Reader.

Handling “scanning then reading” in a queue makes me more efficient for more targeted reading.

Because Google Reader also ties well into other services (see below), I can also share these news items within my network.  (Twitter IS a sharing service, so no need to explain there hopefully.)

Finally, the starred items in Google Reader that I find to be long reads upon opening will often get pushed to Instapaper for reading later on my iPhone.

Google Reader

On my Mac, I’ve tried lots of clients like NetNewsWire and Socialite.app to manage Google Reader and Twitter feeds, but I keep coming back to the standard websites.  They are fast, I know the shortcuts, and Reader’s integration with third-party sharing sites is fantastic.

On my iPhone, I had been using Byline as my primary Google Reader app but am enamored now with Reeder.  The integration of all the services I use makes this a fantastic hub.  Example screenshot of the services:

Archiving News for Later Use/Research

From the above iPhone screenshot (or from the web sites using similar techniques), I can share to the sites and do the final thing I do with news online — archive it.

Using the “Mail Article” button plus my personalized e-mail address from Evernote, I send the text into my digital junk drawer for indexed reference later.

Hope this helps someone out there!

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