Adieu Google Reader

Google Reader is going away on July 1, 2013. (Google Blog)

I have been using it for many years now & it has worked very well for my needs. There have been a few other RSS readers (mostly apps) in between, but I always returned to Google Reader.

Thinking about what kept bringing me back, it comes down to only one reason - I follow about 150+ feeds (some having numerous updates daily). I read some every day. The others may not be read everyday, but I do glance at some of the more intensive feeds in my free time  & find some real gems in there.

Any feed reader app chokes with this many feeds & posts. Startup time becomes slow, management becomes a pain, updates take forever.

Google Reader did all of that on its servers & kept stuff ready for me to access when needed. If I had a few minutes, I just had to open it & I had stuff to read. No feed sync progress indicators, no wait time for feed downloads, …

There were the few other attractions too like complete keyboard navigation and infinite feed history, but they were not deciding factors in making me stick with this.

I feel sad to see it go… but also have hope that the hole left by its departure will urge some new service to come up & innovate in this area - give me something that I never knew that I needed, but would not be able to live without in future.

Thank You Google Reader!!! Rest in peace.

Simple tip to overcome Procrastination

A simple trick to overcome procrastination (from "Best Procrastination Tip Ever"):

Decide to do just the first little part of it — just the first minute, or even 30 seconds of it. Getting started is the only thing in the world that matters.

I can personally attest to this - the weekly class, the monthly bill payment day, even getting to work on Monday morning - its always a problem till I start it. Once I start the activity or get to the venue, I feel very enthusiastic about it & end up wondering why I did not want to do it just a short while back.