Several people are shocked to hear that I read 1000+ emails and several hundred blog posts a day. Ofcourse, when I say that, all I mean is that, I process that much content. I read around 30-40% (That is really the signal-to-noise ratio of web content these days–and that is, if you are subscribed to high quality feeds)

google reader trends

One of friends was curious how I can handle all that data flow, and I emailed her this:

• Everyday, go to bed with a zero count.
• Use tools to reduce your processing. (use email rules/filters to move mails to manageable folders and Google reader for feeds)
• Learn to skip-read. I use a 2 parse method.

1. Parse through sets of items (email headers or blog post headlines), and mark the ones your need to pay attention to (usually around 40%). 
2. Filter based on short-listed items and then go through them in detail. In the case of blog posts, if something does retain my attention after the first 4 sentences, I skip that item.
3. (only for blog posts) I mark the ones I have to comment on, and then do my commenting after I finish a folder.

• Sometimes, you just can’t squeeze everything in a day, I either bookmark or mail it to myself to be addressed over the weekend.

What do you think? Am I missing something that will make my life a little easier?

Update: Thanks to Aswinanand for pointing this out–I don’t really get 1000+ emails. I was just exaggerating (which is just another way of saying, click-baiting! )