Matt’s Cuppa

I found this incredible list of productivity blogs while I was idly surfing the internets, procrastinating, putting off an article that I really should write, and generally just being unproductive. How’s that for irony?

I know people get tired reading lists now and then, so I try not to post too many. Seriously, someone makes a list. Then the next person makes a list of all the similar lists. Then someone else makes a list of all the best lists of  lists. Ad infinitum.

But this one’s good stuff. You’ve got all the familiar faces like Lifehacker, Zen Habits, and 43 Folders, big names like Chris Brogan and Steve Pavlina, and a whole ton of blogs I wish I’d found when I was back in college.

The downside is that there’s too much to possibly take in at once. In fact, it’s perfect for what I call a Viewmaster Rotation. (trademark pending… ) For those of us that grew up in the ’80’s, the Fisher-Price Viewmaster shaped many a childhood adventure by showing us pictures of our favorite superheroes in 3D. For the times, it was pretty cool stuff!

You can learn more about the toy here. For a long reading list like we have, you load ‘em all up into your RSS reader. Then, everyday you scan for two articles that talk about the same theme or topic. You want two articles that flesh the topic out. Just like the pictures from the Viewmaster, you want, each day, to read two articles that, when viewed together, give you a three dimensional picture of the topic.

I have found that by doing this, I read articles from many more blogs that I would be able to otherwise, since I’m not trying to keep up with all of them on a daily basis. Although, to really gain from this exercise, it takes the discipline of finding two articles to read every day. And if you really want to get the most from your Viewmaster Rotation? Synthesize the two articles in a blog post of your own!