10 Smart Hacks for Google Reader

1. Sort your feeds by priority.

Google Reader makes it easy to organize all of your feeds by topic. However, I would also suggest that you categorize your feeds by priority as well. This way, you know which items are “Must Read” and which items “Can Be Skipped” on days that you’re busy.

2. Use Keyboard Shortcuts.

j/k: item down/up o: open/close item s: toggle star m: mark as read/unread t: tag an item

3. Optimize your feed reading time by combining certain feeds into one large master feed.

This can be done using FeedShake. Feedshake allows you to merge, sort, and filter multiple RSS feeds. You can also use filters and tags to create a more customized feed.

For a more advanced solution, you can try Yahoo Pipes. Yahoo Pipes is a very powerful RSS feed remixer that gives you the ability to create web mashups that combine a variety of data from different sources. Yahoo Pipes takes web aggregation to an entirely new level.

4. Add tags to your feed items.

Google Reader lets you organize all of your feed items by tags. This is one of the best features for those who are looking to optimize their time.

To add a tag to a post, simply click “add tags” and enter the relevant tags.

5. Search your feed items.

The only feature that I would really like to see in Google Reader that is currently missing is a search feature. Fortunately, there are ways to work around this.

You can use Google Reader Custom Search to search your feeds using Google Co-op inside Google Reader.

6. Star items for future reference.

Google Reader enables you to quickly star items for future reference. This can come in handy for items that you want to refer to later.

8. Use Expanded View.

For optimum productivity, use expanded view. Expanded view makes it very easy to scroll all of your feed items and scan for interesting posts.

However, I don’t suggest that you simply scroll down the page. You can go from one entry to the next simply by pressing the “J” key. Whenever you want to go backwards, use the “K” key to return to the previous post.