Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Speed Blogging: Tips From a Blogaholic

Okay, so I posted on Facebook last week that I'd just read AND commented on 30 blogs. How long did it take? 30 minutes.

Scott provided the title of this post when he said, "Speed blogging!"

So I give you, Speed Blogging, Tips From A Blogoholic:

1. You need a blog list you can click from quickly. This is one of the many reasons why I created my Wicked Awesome Bloggers list. I go to that blog and viola! Every blog I care most about reading is there. In order of their last post.

2. Quickly click on every blog you wanna read. They'll open in a new window. This is good for you. Sometimes I have 40 windows open. This might freak some of you out. It's okay. Deep breaths.

3. And go! Read the post. Comment. Close window. Guess what? The next blog pops right up, where it was waiting in the background. No extra clicking. Read post. Comment. Close window. Rinse and repeat.

The end.

I can usually go through the morning's posts (up to 30-40 blogs) during my 35-minute lunch break. That includes heating up my lame leftovers and using the restroom.

I then do a nightly round of blog reading. This usually consists of making sure I go to the blogs of people who leave me comments, and anyone else who didn't post by 11:45 AM. I probably spend 60 minutes, TOPS, reading blogs. And I probably read and comment on 45 - 60 blogs every single day.

And that's it. Speed blogging. It's all in spending that 3 minutes to get the windows all open. Then it's click, read, comment. Done!

What tips do you have for reading a lot of blogs in a short amount of time? Lay it on me, I'm all about the speed blogging, baby.

Oh, and I just wanna say that I'm at 6800 words for NaNo. Hold the applause. Ha ha!

51 comments:

Stina said...

Wow I'm impressed! It usually takes me 5 minutes to comment and edit my words (my kids always have some crisis they have to tell me about).

Scott said...

I'm so glad I could provide the title of your post.

40 Windows Open at Once!!! OMG! I'd totally freak. I may have to try that though and see if I can't beat your all time record! Ha!!!

S

Judith Mercado said...

You've confirmed it once again. You *are* Superwoman. I drool with envy at your being able to juggle so effectively so many balls in the air, among them some really important ones like your kidlets. Bravo, Elana.

~Jamie said...

i am not quite that fast, it usually takes me about an hour or so... but I try to comment at least once a week. Makes me feel like I am contributing something!

Bish Denham said...

Now, if only I weren't such a slow reader...Wouldn't matter how many windows I have open, I'd still stuggle in the dark! :O

Windy said...

Super awesomeness on the Nano! I bow down...

And hey! I already do that with the speed blogging! I didn't even realize I was following a technique from the Grand Master Blog-o-Queen. Again, I bow down.

And after yesterday's convo on FB & Status updates, I've started following your technique of Status updates only and then I'm out. Worked great, took me under 5 minutes. Mostly because I don't have a farm. Or a fish tank. Or a cafe. So, again, I bow down.

:D

Roni Loren said...

Great tips. I definitely need them because I follow way too many blogs and want to read them all. :)

Eric said...

Elana, are you on speed or something? How the heck do you read that many blogs throughout the day AND manage to be up to 6800 words already on NaNo? Holy Freakin Cow! (I have no idea why a cow would be holy btw, not to mean freakin). That is awesome though, that you're able to do all that. Once again, you're my idol.

Unknown said...

Niiice! I'll have to try it. I try and do it through Google Reader, but now I follow a gazillion blogs so there's no way to get to all of them.

XiXi said...

Oh yes, your blue progress bar on NaNo is making me quite jealous. :-)

Jennifer @ Fruit of My Hands said...

I do this too. I just need to devote the time to it daily instead of once or twice a week, ha ha!

Teri said...

Amazing!!! I'm impressed!

Leigh Hutchens Burch said...

I just recently started doing that -- clicking on posts from my reader and opening new windows to leave comments. It works out well, and is much more time efficient.

Thanks for the advice you left me yesterday. I am trying not to stress about Nano (especially since I didn't even officially sign up!) and to just let it flow.

Congrats on your word count!

ali cross said...

Applause, Applause.

Thanks for the tips Elana!

Unknown said...

I freak out when there are more than three windows open at once so that's impressive. Almost as impressive as 6,800 words - that's awesome!

Lizzy Mason said...

You really are Super Blogger! I read a ton of blogs every day (via Google Reader--the best invention ever! And no window opening required.), but I don't actually get to comment that often.

AWESOME NaNo progress!!! Go Elana!

Kathryn Hupp-Harris said...

Sometimes I have 40 windows open. This might freak some of you out.

My computer crashed when I read that. :-)

Corey Schwartz said...

Wowee! The reading part is fast (for me) What slows me down is the thinking "Gee, do I have anything worthwhile to say/add?" The answer is usually "no". Then I have to think... "Should I write something anyway?"

As you can imagine, this quickly adds up :)

Melanie Hooyenga said...

I love having lots of windows open, but 40 is A LOT. And I have a Mac with the mouse that if you squeeze the side all the windows go little so you can quickly see EVERY open window, and I think my eyeballs would convulse at that.

It would make it go faster though...

I go back and forth between reading them first thing in the morning or saving it for later. If I start first thing the # isn't as overwhelming and I read throughout the day (yes, I have that luxury) but I feel better when I do my "stuff" first.

Anonymous said...

I follow too many blogs...

Elana Johnson said...

I love you guys. *sigh*

I'm glad none of you have said how psychotic I am... yet. ;-)

Unknown said...

Wow, that's an amazing effort, I have enough trouble trying to keep up with the handful I'm following at the moment.

Donna Gambale said...

I do something similar, though I'm not half as efficient. I open all the blog posts that I want to read from my Dashboard and then go through them one by one. (There's probably about 40.) I try to read quickly, but I'm not half as fast! And I don't comment on all of them, but I try to comment as much as possible.

You're pretty darn impressive!

Unknown said...

Very impressive indeed! I've yet to come up with an efficient way to read all the blogs on my list. I cover about only five a day!

Karen Baldwin said...

Saw that you are following my blog and looked you up. WOW! And thank you. My eyes are dazed, my jaw is dropped. I'm going to have to get a cup of coffee and spend some time with your blog and website.
I'm impressed how fast you can skim and comment on all the blogs, but I don't want to do that with yours. Not with all the great stuff you've got, let alone your writing.

Michelle McLean said...

Holy Wow - that is all ;-D

Tamika: said...

Wonderful advice, I need this for sure. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. I must be doing something wrong. Duh!

Great job with NaNo!

Stephanie Thornton said...

I'd never thought about opening all those blog windows. Good thinking!

I'm a teacher too and sometimes I'm lucky enough to have down time at work to comment, but usually I sneak in random blogging throughout the day.

I really just need about an extra hour in each day. :)

Robin M said...

What a great idea. Will have to try it. Maybe it will cut my time down to half.

Unknown said...

I'm impressed. I'll try it and see how it goes!

Jemi Fraser said...

Ooooo! I like the idea of opening them all at the beginning. Never thought of doing that. Great idea :) Off to go try it!

Aaron Polson said...

Killer strategies. I'm still too slow, and, like the proverbial English teacher, I labor over my words too much. Keep knocking out that word count. Awesome.

JESSJORDAN said...

You are a crazy person!

It takes me longer than a minute a piece to read a blog and post a comment, so I'm not sure how you do it ...

Congrats for you, though!

lisa and laura said...

You are a machine! I'm totally stealing this idea.

Katie Ganshert said...

Talk about efficient!

Tara McClendon said...

I've never thought about how much time I spend opening and closing blogs. I'll have to give it a try.

Little Ms J said...

This made me tired. I have no idea how you do it! I think that it is the volume of email I get during the day that creates blog brain at night. I guess I should work your system... Hello, my name is LMJ and I'm blog comment challenged.

Tess said...

That's impressive! Who knew you were also a blogging ninja???

Anonymous said...

This post has transformed the way I go about blogging. I am taking on the challenge of getting through all of the blogs I follow every day, and commenting on most if not all of them.

Thanks.

Carolyn V. said...

*gasp* I love it!!!

I tried to comment only once a week, but that leaves me with hours and hours of blog posts to read. I'm totally going to try speed blogging! Hooray!

Anonymous said...

Since this is an old post, I'll only quickly fuck in and say~

THANK YOU!!! I'm soooo about to fo this. Your blog is is changing my social networking life!! And saving me hours!!

:)

~ Corra

from the desk of a writer

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness! That's supposed to say 'duck in and say...'

I'm leaving it up because, frankly, it made me laugh. Ha! Delete at will.

Oh, and 'fo' is 'do.'

And I think we can both agree only one 'is' was necessary above.

(I really should try to remember to edit before posting...)

~ Corra

from the desk of a writer

Valerie Ipson said...

Can I aspire to be you?

Nancy J. Cohen said...

All I can say is...you must be a fast reader!

Jean Henry Mead said...

Great advice, Elana! I'm going to use it.

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Jean Henry Mead said...

Great advice, Elana! I'm going to use it.

Please stop by Murderous Musings. We have a deli of blog articles at our site: http://murderousmusings.blogspot.com/

Jean Henry Mead
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fans-of-Jean-Henry-Mead/334147262834?filter=3

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Jenny said...

Nice article
Keep it up

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