Another lesson I learned on our vacation, one that has nothing to do with Route 66 or travel in general, is that I need to cut down on my news and other feeds. When we were gone, I read almost nothing online. I would usually have CNN on when we were getting ready to head out for the day, and I’d get breaking news updates on my phone. But otherwise, I just marked all my feeds as “read.”
I had to do it. There just wasn’t time enough in the day to do our traveling, enjoy our lunches, dinners, and wandering about, and then write a blog entry at night about it all (which we both wanted to do...not only for your enjoyment, but to chronicle everything as it happened).
I realized that it was quite liberating to detach myself from these feeds; I had no qualms as I clicked “Mark all as read” and no fears that I was missing out on some important nugget of information. I was connected, in case anyone needed to reach me, and I was updating people who we would be seeing along the way, but I wasn’t spending much time weeding through news stories. It was actually a relief!
So I started making some changes this week. I still have plenty of personal blogs that I read, and those friends will continue to see occasional comments from me. On every entry? Probably not, but that was a change I made a while back. I was much more merciless when it came to news and “fun” feeds. One of the first to go was 9GAG, which was a lot of fun for a while, but deteriorated into probably 75+ entries a day of bad drawings and overdone memes; a few other similar sites also bit the dust. I deleted a few political blogs that were heavy on the sarcasm and short on facts. There were a couple of blogs that update rarely, if ever in the past year, and those went, too.
I haven’t lost my interest in these things, and I still plan on keeping up with the news. I mean, come ON...this is Beth we’re talking about here! That isn’t going to change. But as I get back to my usual reading pace, I needed to downsize a bit. At least my downsizing doesn’t screw over the American worker!
You do know that I get a fair share of my national and international news from your feeds, right? How else do I supplement my NPR informational diet if you are going to cut back on your feeds and sharing..?
ReplyDeleteI've done this, too, and it helps - especially during an election year. I loved your posts from your trip and meant to comment more than I did, but I read some of them on my phone, and it's too tedious on there. I'd love to take Route 66 like you and Ken did someday.
ReplyDeleteThat is what I did with Facebook a few months back...
ReplyDeleteI think everyone cuts back now and then. We all get busy and it's all time consuming but nice to return to now and then.
ReplyDeleteA Route 66 trip kind of chills you out, doesn't it? Priorities change, blood pressure evens out, and memories sustain you for a long time. You're a true roadie.
ReplyDeleteBeth it was great following your trip along rt 66..you made it very interesting, I know that I will never get to travel like that again so I enjoyed living vicariously through your words...thanks...Sandi
ReplyDeleteI do this type of culling every few months. I don't read as many blogs as I used to, don't comment as often on the ones I do read, and will "mark as read" if I get too far behind on them. It's a good thing to do.
ReplyDelete