How to Know More than Everyone, Faster than Everyone

Being able to synthesize a bunch of information on a given topic is useful, but it can also be time consuming. First, you need to do preliminary research to find good sources of information. Then, you need to constantly revisit those sources to see if any new content has been posted since the last time you checked. News apps like Circa are starting to fix this problem. Feed Readers (also referred to as RSS Feeds or content aggregators) also provide an effective and robust solution.

Feed readers allow you to subscribe to nearly any website. After subscribing to sites of interest, any new content published to those sites will automatically flow into your feed reader. The content is displayed in an easy-to-read format, without any advertisements or other visual distractions. Feed readers have had a long and bumpy history. Several old feed readers, such as Google Reader, are now defunct, but new products have filled the void. I currently use a very effective feed reader called Feedly.

My Feed Reader Setup

I use Feedly to follow all the blogs and other sites I find useful. I’ve organized my feeds into the following custom categories within Feedly: Sports, Technology, and Other Stuff.

In the Sports section, I subscribe to a popular college sports blog that covers University of Michigan sports exclusively. Because the stories come directly into Feedly, I never miss a post. I’ve been to the actual site before, and it’s an eyesore. In Feedly, I don’t have to worry about that. Feedly strips away all the unsightly html markup so I can view just the text on a blank white background, like a page in a book.

In the Technology section, I subscribe to popular tech blogs like TechCrunch and VentureBeat. I also subscribe to the blogs of various VCs and startup gurus whom I admire. This is my largest section, with nearly twenty feeds.

In the Other section, I subscribe to a handful of thought leaders who write primarily about lifestyle design. This section includes the blogs of Tim Ferris, Leo Babauta, and The Minimalists. These sites give me inspiration, and also serve as a nice mental break from work whenever I need it.

At any given time, I’m usually subscribed to between 20–30 sites from across the web. This becomes my information hub. I don’t need to type in a bunch of URLs or search for new content. I simply open my feed reader and immediately start powering through everything new that’s important to me, without worrying about missing anything. Having the fresh content at my fingertips saves me an enormous amount of time. It focuses my information-gathering and gives me a constant stream of content for inspiration and ideas. It also helps me stay informed on the news that’s most relevant to me and my endeavors. Notice that I don’t subscribe to CNN or ESPN. That’s because these sources are too broad. I instead look for very specific sources that give me rich, focused content that I’m most likely to care about.

I love how Feedly strips away unnecessary visual distractions. It allows me to focus only on the information I’m trying to consume. Feedly also has keyboard shortcuts on the desktop version, and clever swiping gestures on the mobile version for even quicker consumption. Usually, I view articles in the Titles Only view. This means that only headlines are shown, displayed in a list format. I can click into any headline to view the full story. This view allows me to quickly scan several stories at once. I dig deeper only when I’m interested. I usually scan through hundreds of stories a day, reading the 15–20 that look the most interesting and applicable to whatever I’m working on.

I check Feedly a few times a day, about twenty minutes per session. When people mention recent news happening in the startup world, I usually already know about it.

Oversubscribing

A word of advice — if you start using a feed reader like Feedly, be wary of going overboard and adding too many sources. If you add too many sources or subscribe to sites that post an exorbitant amount of content, you’ll experience content overload. It can start to feel like a second inbox, which gets overwhelming in a hurry. If you’re spending hours going through your feeds every day, you may want to consider removing a few sources from your stream to lighten the load.

Saving Info

To take your information synthesis to the next level, save your favorite posts from your feed reader to services like Evernote, Pocket, or Instapaper. These services store content so you can easily review things later. I use Pocket for saving my favorite articles and Evernote for taking general notes on anything that comes to mind. In Pocket, I tag content as much as possible so it can be easily filtered in the future. How do you think I kept my research organized for this post? Every article and website with relevant content was stored in Pocket and tagged.

• Evernote: www.evernote.com
• Pocket: www.getpocket.com
• Instapaper: www.instapaper.com/

This post is an excerpt from The Connection Algorithm, my new book about taking risks, which hit #1 in the Entrepreneurship and Personal Success categories on Amazon a few days after it launched.

About Me: http://www.jtev.me