A few people have asked how many blogs I can read during my morning blog time. There’s no answer, as it varies day to day. But I can read a lot, and here’s one reason why:
I don’t read every post start to finish. Sometimes I don’t read more than a few sentences before moving on to the next post. It’s nothing personal, but simply a question of time management.
It’s a fact that not every post by every blogger we love is going to resonate with us. Skimming or skipping the posts that don’t connect makes sense and isn’t an insult to the blogger: their next post will be in waiting in the reader, too.
I also think the skipping evens out over time – skipping blogger A one day gives me time for bloggers B and C… who I might skip at some future date to have time for blogger A.
For me, length of post is not usually the issue here – if I’m interested, I keep reading. My choice is usually based on subject matter or some aspect of the writing that just didn’t grab me right then for whatever reason.
And I keep in mind the corollary, too: if I’m skipping posts sometimes, people are skipping mine, too. Or put another way, if I post a Facebook tutorial and you’re not on Facebook, I hope you save your time and read something more relevant!
I don’t think skipping or skimming should make you feel bad… but maybe that’s just me. To me, it’s about using limited time wisely. Still, if I’m off base, I do hope you’ll let me know.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree. I compare it to “reading” a newspaper. Or does anyone do that anymore? I skim most of the pages of my morning papers, stopping to read the important or relevant articles. Then there are the columns and features that are my favorites, so they get automatically read.
You’re right. It is a question of time management. I would love nothing more than to read every article in the paper. How erudite would that make me? No time. There’s a reason why the Sunday papers are bigger.
Greg,
It’s nice to know how someone else spends their blog reading time.
I read blogs the same way. If It holds my interest I read the whole thing and comment, but if it doesn’t I move on. I know that I’ll be back to read it another day and will leave a comment then. I do tend to skim if it is a really long post. If it’s the first time I’ve been to that blog I skim through some of the other posts to see if I want to come back. I enjoy reading exerpts of WIPs, as long as they aren’t too long. I try to keep my posts reasonaly short, I don’t want to be thought of a s long winded.
Greg, I do the same thing with the blogs in my follower as well.
Brenda, What are these newspapers of which you speak?
LOL, Elisabeth. I still cling to newspapers, personally, but I’m sure that’ll change.
Glad to see others on the same page. The truth is that once I knew I didn’t have to read every word every day, I got way more efficient… and probably read more voices and more posts than ever.