Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, interviewed Robert Scoble on "How Scoble Reads 622 RSS Feeds Each Morning" (see the video interview below).  The key take away from watching Scoble work his magic on Google Reader, is the use of the keyboard to navigate through his feeds. All 622 of them!

When Windows 3.1 came out, I was not enthralled in abandoning my keyboard and the DOS command line for the world of mouse clicks, GUIs and such.  For the longest time I would continue to drop out to the DOS shell to copy files, perform directory listings, or search for files because it was easier and faster.  Since then I have succumbed and grab for the mouse for every task on Windows.  Reading my feeds on Google Reader, I would click on the feed (I have Updated Only turned on) and use the mouse to scroll through the new items.  I'd then move onto the next feed and so on.  If I find an item I wish to keep, I'd scroll down to the star icon and click to mark.

Watching the Scoble interview, I decided to give it a try.  I switched to All Items listing (I've been using the Expanded View tab already) and read the new items via keyboard.  Using j/k - next/preview item (or n/p) to navigate through the items was much faster.  It is amazing on how quickly I can peruse new items.  The key to it is when you press next item, it is displayed at the top of the reader view window so your eyes stay looking in one place.  Basically it's like paging through the entire feed listing.  If I find something I want to keep, a simple pressing of 's' and it is starred.   I have much reader setting to automatically mark an item as read so if I want to unread the item for later, 'm' and it's marked unread. I have forgotten just how much simpler using the keyboard can be.

Key Google Reader Keyboard Shortcuts:

• ? - Brings up shortcuts listing
• j - next item in the list
• k - previous item in the list
• n - next item in the list (in list view selects next item but doesn't open)
• p - previous item in the list (in list view selects previous item but doesn't open)
• s - toggle star
• m - toggle mark as read/unread
• r - refresh

To see a full listing of all available shortcuts go to Google Reader Common Questions.

Thanks Tim for your interview of Robert.  You have changed my RSS viewing habits forever!

How Scoble Reads 622 RSS Feeds Each Morning [The Blog of Tim Ferriss]

See also:

Getting good with Google Reader [Lifehacker].