When I chose intentional as my word for 2013, this isn’t what I had pictured. I had imagined a more organized life, with items constantly checked off a to do list and less time just hanging out. But lately that’s not the form my life has taken. I’ve been choosing intentional relaxation and sanity instead. Watching TV shows with Brian instead of working on my laptop and half watching. Getting in bed a little earlier and reading (and writing the draft of this post by hand) instead of catching up on unread blog posts.
I think the upcoming closure of Google Reader helped me with my inability to relax, in a way. Though the service is running until July, I immediately switched to Feedly, on the advice of Katy Widrick. Feedly is great and there are a lot of things I’m liking about it, but I’ve lost my blog reading rhythm. And it’s incredibly freeing. Suddenly I’m aware of the huge volume of content I was trying to keep up with every day. The numbers of unread posts on Feedly are less menacing to me and I’m not constantly aware when more posts are coming in. For the first time, I’m reading things by category instead of all the posts that come in, something I could never make myself do in Reader (even though other people advised me to do so).
It’s good timing, considering that I’ve been mulling over the notion that I can’t have it all for some time now. There’s a lot to be said for not beating oneself up over undone tasks. I tend to put too much pressure on myself and I want to be intentional about not doing so. I developed a lot of post ideas during the 28 Day Blog Challenge and I still intend to use them. My current vision is to spend a couple hours each weekend writing for the coming week. Unfortunately life doesn’t always allow for that and my afternoons have been very busy lately. I know the upcoming month is going to be even crazier. So, after completing all the crucial tasks, I’ve been intentionally taking things a little easier and doing a little less. Try it.
I really love Feedly too (thanks, Katy!) but I have still been using Reader out of habit. But I hadn’t considered that maybe reading blogs differently would be a good thing.
On the other hand, I kind of gave up on keeping my Reader below 1000 after the holidays when I had the time to catch up. I do read by category, and there are some categories I just never get to. Ah well.
I also feel like Feedly is less menacing with the numbers than Google Reader! I’m not sure what it is, but I find it a lot easier to just leave things unread for a while instead of noticing and wanting to clear those unread numbers. I also did a bit or reorganizing when I move things over to Feedly, so I think that helped things be less overwhelming as well.
I’m a big beater upper over unchecked checklist items, but I’m intentionally becoming less rigid this year too!